Turnitin Spring 2006 Pilot Study Available to UT Austin Faculty
DIIA has posted the results of the Turnitin pilot study conducted during the spring 2006 semester. The Turnitin software resource is designed to help students avoid plagiarism and improper citation. The software encourages original writing and proper documentation practices by cross-referencing submitted materials with an archived database of journals, essays, newspaper articles, books, and other published work.
Download the spring 2006 Turnitin pilot study (.pdf)
Key conclusions of the DIIA pilot study show that instructors who used Turnitin were satisfied with the tool and would use it again in the future. Most instructors and students found Turnitin easy to use, and reported only minor technical difficulties. They felt the resource helped reduce plagiarism, but did not gain any instructional value from it.
While preliminary results are encouraging, the low number of respondents indicate that adoption of the resource would not be cost effective at this time. DIIA will periodically re-evaluate the interest level among UT instructors.
DIIA would encourage faculty to explore other UT Austin resources related to definitions, policies, and prevention of plagiarism such as the UT Libraries, the Dean of Students, and the Department of Rhetoric and Composition.
To learn more about the software, see the Turnitin Web site. For questions about the study or the pilot program, contact Shan Evans