I didn't manage to blog over lunch.  I was too busy speaking to Richard Hall about whether to was possible to put too much information online for students - in case they stopped coming to lectures..

James 243 days ago

I've been using Turnitin across all my UK modules for a couple of years now and have found it a beneficial piece of software.  I make the point to the students on every module that they're human beings submitting the work, and I'm a human being looking at the results - this is, as you say, a tool.

On bigger modules it can become difficult to check that everyone has submitted to Turnitin, but maybe this is down to me not using it appropriately, or missing a trick somewhere.

And anyone using this for group work needs to make the point that only one student should submit the work, otherwise there'll be duplicates causing all sorts of fun at the end of the day!  (Although you can of course choose to exclude specific sources when asking the software to look for matches.)

David Jarman 244 days ago

I only use Turnitin in my "policing" role as an academic conduct officer but am aware of colleagues' educational use with formative changes before final submission. I don't think Turnitin is a panacea and  similarity index reports needs careful and experienced interpretation. I agree that staff and students often adopt an overly simplistic approach - above this number of similarity bad, below this level of similarity good and it's not like that. I have recently had 3 cases of plagiarism which Turnitin did not pick up/include in the report despite definite copy-pasting from e-journals. I would value a look at the checklist created by Clare and will ask her about it again.

Janis Greig 135 days ago

Thanks for all the links David, that's really useful. Rushing around a bit in between sessions so just in here very briefly but great to see all the blog posts and comments popping up ...

Elaine

Elaine Mowat 244 days ago

Yes I admit - I do have a bit of a fetish about technology.  I'm completely new to all this - so it's all fascinating to me.  Strangely enough all this mirrors the debate happening at Channel 4 News (and across journalism I think).  Does technology enhance journalism?  Or does it somehow get in the way?  Does the sexiness of the technology blind us to the real nuts-and-bolts journalism hidden behind. 

Sounds like it might be similar with curriculums and Learning...

James 244 days ago

Absolutely - it's too easy to add sparkle to a presentation/lecture that ultimately detracts from what you're trying to say.  There's a need to keep speaking to the students I reckon - 'am I going over the top?'!

Off to see the Google Wave talk now, but late already...

David Jarman 244 days ago