[ARCHIVED] Discussion board posts & plagiarism

[rbzostek]

Does anyone know if there is a way to check discussion board posts for plagiarism?

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello  @rbzostek ‌...

This has been a popular request in the Community.  In fact, there is a current Feature Idea already posted that's now on Instructure's "Product Radar": https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/4859-enable-turnitin-for-discussion-posts" modifiedtitle="true....  So, you may want to vote for that idea and/or post a comment to it to let Instructure know why it is important to you.

Also, you might want to check out a very recent blog post from  @dhulsey ‌ called Stopping Intra-Class Academic Dishonesty via Discussions.  He discussed some ways that you can set up your class discussions to try and prevent plagiarism even if Turnitin cannot yet be utilized.

Hope this helps, Rachel.

[dhulsey · Accepted solution]

Hey, Rachel! In addition to the blog post  @Chris_Hofer ‌ directed you to, you can copy and paste the entire discussion board into a plagiarism checker. My school has Turnitin. Right before I grade posts, I ctrl A the whole page and paste into into Turnitin. If you have access to any kind of plagiarism checker, you should be able to do something similar.  I hope that helps!

[dhulsey · Accepted solution]

Good question,  @lynn_greenough . I am not worried about the names being included. My institution specifies names as directory information, so there should not be a  FERPA concern, and, anyway, anyone outside of my institution would have to request to see the file from me. On a practical level, the names make it easy to tell who the culprit is if there is a case of plagiarism.   

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello  @rbzostek ‌...

This has been a popular request in the Community.  In fact, there is a current Feature Idea already posted that's now on Instructure's "Product Radar": https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/4859-enable-turnitin-for-discussion-posts" modifiedtitle="true....  So, you may want to vote for that idea and/or post a comment to it to let Instructure know why it is important to you.

Also, you might want to check out a very recent blog post from  @dhulsey ‌ called Stopping Intra-Class Academic Dishonesty via Discussions.  He discussed some ways that you can set up your class discussions to try and prevent plagiarism even if Turnitin cannot yet be utilized.

Hope this helps, Rachel.

[DorcasDelfyett]

How do I prevent other students from copy & pasting my discussion forums in Canvas?

[dhulsey · Accepted solution]

Hey, Rachel! In addition to the blog post  @Chris_Hofer ‌ directed you to, you can copy and paste the entire discussion board into a plagiarism checker. My school has Turnitin. Right before I grade posts, I ctrl A the whole page and paste into into Turnitin. If you have access to any kind of plagiarism checker, you should be able to do something similar.  I hope that helps!

[lynn_greenough]

Thanks, Dallas. Do you have any concerns about student names being sent to Turnitin with the copy/paste method?

[dhulsey · Accepted solution]

Good question,  @lynn_greenough . I am not worried about the names being included. My institution specifies names as directory information, so there should not be a  FERPA concern, and, anyway, anyone outside of my institution would have to request to see the file from me. On a practical level, the names make it easy to tell who the culprit is if there is a case of plagiarism.   

[andrea_galinski]

I know this is an old post, so I am not sure if Dallas will see this, but how do I submit copied discussion posts to Turnitin? Thank you!

Andrea

[Chris_Hofer]

Hello there,  @rbzostek  ...

I noticed that there hasn't been any new activity in this thread for quite a while, and we've not heard from you since you first posted this question on June 12th.  Have you had an opportunity to review the above replies?  If so, did any of them help to answer your question?  If so, please feel free to mark one of them as "Correct".  However, if you are still looking for some help with this question, please let us know by coming back to this topic and posting a message below so that members of the Canvas Community can continue to assist you.  Since we've not heard from you for over two months, and since there hasn't been any new activity for about that same amount of time, I am going to mark your question as "Assumed Answered", but that won't prevent you or others from posting additional questions/comments below.  I hope that's okay with you, Rachel.  Looking forward to hearing from you soon!

[hbrown5018]

I'm curious where this idea is with Canvas? I have many faculty inquiring about the use of TurnItIn for discussions. 

Thank you, Heather 

[Stef_retired]

 @hbrown1 ‌, here's the link to the idea: https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/4859-enable-turnitin-for-discussion-posts 

[hbrown5018]

Thank you stefaniesanders! I voted up for this idea. I was just curious, since this has been an idea for awhile, if there was any type of movement on the topic?  Thank you....HB

[Stef_retired]

 @hbrown1 , the most recent update is posted in the idea description. Those will be updated quarterly.

[Mary_Jenkins]

As far as I know, my instructor is just copy-pasting the whole discussion board to check the posts for plagiarism. I am not sure whether it is convenient, but this is a proven way to check the posts for plagiarism. He uses Unicheck as a plagiarism detection tool. 

I agree that it would be a very useful feature for both students and teachers. Still, most likely the development process is not that easy if none of the plagiarism detection software providers has presented this feature yet.

[AneeqGill · Accepted solution]

I must say not all the plagiarism checkers are enough to catch the duplicate content in forums, blog comments, and discussion boards. I personally use Prepostseo because it detects plagiarism from many of the resources including discussion boards.