[ARCHIVED] Unsatisfied with Turnitin

[lshulman]

I have not used Turnitin often. This semester I am using it and find it not helpful at all.

Most of what it finds as a match is from other papers submitted from other students at other schools. Due to  privacy issues, it cannot show me the content from those suspect sources. This does not allow me to use my own judgement as to the reasonableness of the "copying" (could be just a matter of common knowledge/phrases or even bibliography).

When we used Blackboard with SafeAssign, I found that much more helpful. SafeAssign found a LOT of content from the web, not simply from looking at other papers submitted to the plagiarism checker. Plus, SafeAssign allowed faculty to submit student work (text or attached files) to check content even on assignments that were not set up to automatically be checked.

I wonder if Canvas might find a different plagiarism tool besides Turnitin. Are others having similar lack of satisfaction from what Turnitin does/does not do? Or maybe I am just not using it effectively (settings)?

[Chris_Hofer · Accepted solution]

Hello there, @lshulman ...

To my knowledge, Instructure (the folks that make Canvas) haven't said that Turnitin is their "official" plagiarism checker tool.  The integration between Canvas and Turnitin is typically a decision made by your school...most likely folks from your school's Online Learning/eLearning department.  In searching the EduAppCenter website (where you can find a whole host of other third-party LTIs that integrate with Canvas), I found some other plagiarism tools (which most likely have a cost associated with them) that your school could investigate:

• Copyleaks
• Compilatio
• PlagScan
• Unicheck
• VeriCite

I've not used any of these, so I cannot speak to how they function or what features/options they may have compared to Turnitin.

Finally, I'll point you to a blog by @dhulsey called Canvas and Turnitin - Instructure Community (canvaslms.com) which has a ton of information about Turnitin ... if you are interested in looking at that.

Hopefully some of these links will be of help to you.  Let Community members know if you have any other questions about this...thanks!

[dhulsey]

@lshulman Years ago Turnitin said that its internal research showed that the most likely source of plagiarism is other students' work, so their engine does highlight matches to other students. When it also matches an internet source, you can drill down for that information on the right of the screen in the match settings. Yes, you will sometimes only get the student match and do not have access to the submission from the other student, but you can also track down the original source with a bit of internet searching. Sometimes, savvy cheaters are turning to paper sources to copy, so the best Turnitin can do is show you that another student copied from the same source.

If you wish, you can disable the Turnitin repository in your Turnitin settings and then you will not see these matches. I prefer to leave them on, but it might be worth experimenting with to get a report you find most helpful.

[lshulman]

@dhulsey 

<you can disable the Turnitin repository in your Turnitin settings and then you will not see these matches.>

Thanks for the suggestion. I will give that a try and see what happens. I imagine if the other student sources also used the web for their sources, with "student repository" turned off, perhaps Turn-it-in will then use the web as the source.

[dtod]

Looks like Turnitin has been buying up competitors, e.g. Ouriginal, Plagscan, and Vericite.