Turnitin at the School of Architecture

Recently, I led a Turnitin session for the School of Architecture, where we walked through how to use the Turnitin suite to set up an assignment, how a student would then submit their piece of work, and how to use the Originality Report and the functionalities of GradeMark effectively.

This session was the result of a request from the School of Architecture’s Learning Technologist, Andre Du Plooy; who wanted the academic staff within Architecture to learn about Turnitin, and to potentially start using the tool for their assessments.

On a Wednesday lunchtime, I delivered the session at Friary House (the home of the Architecture Masters  programmes) in their newly equipped lecture/seminar room. There were a handful of very keen, and inquisitive, academic staff who wanted to learn more about what this tool could offer. I believe the on-going Q+A throughout the workshop the most useful element for academics. Some of the questions asked (and the solutions) included the following:

 
1.Is it possible for staff to batch-download submissions with the Originality Report attached to each submission?

Unfortunately, this isn’t possible at present. Staff can batch-download submissions without the Originality Report, or could individually download submissions that do include the Originality Report. Students can only download their Originality Report, when the “Allow students to see Originality Reports?” has been set to yes within the assignment settings.

2. Is it possible to share QuickMarks and Rubrics with other staff members, as not to duplicate the work in creating them?

Yes. You can export and import the banks of QuickMarks and Rubrics you have created within the Turnitin system. This  allows you to share them amongst your colleagues. Your QuickMarks and Rubrics are created and stored against your individual username; therefore every time you login you have quick access to the QuickMarks or Rubrics that you have previously created. 

3. Where do students get access to their feedback once the Post date has passed?

To access their feedback, students simply go to the exact area where they submitted their work. If they navigate to the area where they submitted their work, this will take them to their assignment that will include their feedback (once the Post Date has passed) . 

Participants were also interested in the new Turnitin product – Feedback Studio. This will replace the GradeMark element, and will be available to Cardiff University staff for the next academic year. Click here for a demo of Feedback Studio, to see it for yourself.

The workshop was recorded, and handouts were created, in the hope of adding to the resource that Andre has been building for the School of Architecture. This ‘Instructor Support’ tab is available in every module, and is a great resource to help staff with learning technologies.

Gethin Môn Rowlands

Learning Technology Officer – Centre for Education Innovation

I invited Gethin to run a session on Turnitin for some of our Module leaders and Teaching assistants at the Welsh school of Architecture. The intention was to build on existing knowledge / understanding and to leave staff with a degree of confidence in using the tool. At the same time I was planning to record and use the session as the foundation of a staff support resource for those who could not attend and future reflection/guidance in the use of the tool. As such we had to assure we cover everything from the basics all the way to a level that will allow staff to pick up and use the tool.

“The session was well received. We allowed for some question and discussion time that was essential to eke out the existing experience and shortcomings already identified by staff. This also presented the opportunity to clarify any misconceptions around the features and capabilities of the tool”

 

Around May 2016 I completed some work around providing a central intuitive space for staff to find basic level support when they begin development of their modules in Learning Central. This support portal was not to replace or replicate any of the existing support resources already in place but instead to provide a reliable logical place to go find links to the range of existing support materials available to staff. The most obvious place was to include an instructor support area in our learning central school template and for the content of this link to reside in Learning Central content collection. This meant that all our modules rolled over with module support baked right into the template. Having the content reside in content collection also meant that I only needed to update any links or resources in one place and all modules will get updated at once.

Where we Identified gaps in the support available, short simple step by step guidance was created. We now intent to develop and add this Turnitin resource. It’s also worth noting that it has been reported by staff that even though they have received training on Turnitin in the past their use of the tool is infrequent and the knowledge get lost by the time they need to use reinforcing the need for an asynchronous resource for staff.

This approach has proven quite successful making it easy to point to a reliable and singular source for support needs related to module development and associated tools. Looking forward we might replace or supplement this resource with the learning hub launched this week.

Andre du Plooy

E-learning Officer – Welsh School of Architecture