[External Tools] Enable Turnitin for Discussion Posts

[tlake2]

Greetings:

Thank you for your time in reviewing this idea.

It would be wonderful if Turnitin were enabled for Discussions posts and responses.

This would prevent students from cobbling together information from online sources to write original discussion posts.  It would be optimal if the Turnitin feature worked like the one provided for assignment submissions, so that students and faculty can see the percentage of match, etc.  This would be another great tool for helping students understand the importance of originality and avoiding plagiarism.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

[scottdennis]

Hello  @tlake2 ​,

Thank you for taking the time to come suggest this feature idea.  People in the community have discussed work arounds for using tii with discussions (Turnitin & discussions ) but as far as I know it hasn't ever been suggested as a feature idea.  Google searching I see that tii has been used with discussions in other systems.  This feature idea will open for vote on March 2nd and stay open until June 1st.

[Renee_Carney]

This idea has moved to the next stage and will be open for voting among the Canvas Community, from Wed. March 2, 2016 - Wed. June 1, 2016.

Check out this doc for additional details about how the voting process works!

[Stef_retired]

I love graded discussions, but I've mostly shied away from using them in my courses because of the real problem with copy-and-pasted posts. If a Turnitin originality check were available for discussion posts, I'd be able to foster engagement through the use of discussions.

[sillsjo]

Discussion are fertile ground for copy/paste infractions and outright cheating.

I would like to see this functionality extended to other plagiarism tools as well, beyond just TII. It should become part of the LTI toolset for any developer providing plagiarism scanning.

[jhester]

This would save quite a bit of effort for those of us who use the discussion board as a vital part of the course. 

[rquinn]

This is a brilliant idea, particularly for online courses that rely on discussion boards.

[pcooper]

This would be a really helpful feature and a big time saver for faculty!

[agoldberg]

Not only would it be helpful for plagarism control, but also the Turnitin grading features are more robust than those in Canvas.

[Jeff_F]

Does the group envision use of Turnitin for the initial response to the discussion prompt or to all subsequent replies as well?

[rquinn]

I would think that academic dishonesty would be more likely to occur in original posts. Also, if students see that Turnitin is enabled for a discussion board, that will probably discourage plagiarism across the board, so to speak.

Rebecca Dakin Quinn

English Professor

Honors Committee Chair

Secular Student Alliance Advisor

(916) 660-8038

5000 Rocklin Road

MT-10A

Rocklin, CA 95677