Virginia Tech has partnered with Turnitin - Feedback Studio to provide plagiarism detection software for use by all students and faculty. This educational tool promotes academic integrity while also enhancing student learning and improving the student writing experience.

“I encourage faculty to use these tools to assist students in the writing process, as well as to help identify and respond to plagiarism,” said James Orr, assistant provost for academic strategy and policy.

Turnitin - Feedback Studio integrates with Canvas to allow students to receive feedback on the originality of their writing along with spelling and grammar suggestions. Feedback Studio checks for plagiarism, allows for the use of drag and drop comments, and provides students the opportunity to see source matches and view instructor feedback directly on their work. Faculty must add Feedback Studio to their Canvas course through the assignments tool for students to use the software on assignments.

Implementation of the Turnitin system follows the launch of iThenticate by the Graduate School earlier this year. iThenticate is an academic resource that supports verification of original scholarly work prepared by Virginia Tech graduate students and faculty. iThenticate helps writers, editors and researchers prevent unauthorized or improper claims of original academic authorship by comparing manuscripts against a database of over 60 billion web pages and 155 million content items. Graduate students can use iThenticate to review their written materials (e.g., papers, article drafts, responses to qualifying or prelim exam prompts, drafts of thesis/dissertation) while faculty can use the software to review their written documents (e.g., articles, grant proposals).

The Office of Undergraduate Academic Integrity and Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS), will provide training sessions for Turnitin - Feedback Studio for faculty during the summer months and throughout the academic year. Training videos will also be made accessible for everyone. Training dates are as follows:

  • Thursday, Aug. 16: 1-2:30 p.m.
  • Thursday, Sept. 13: 9-10:00 a.m.
  • Wednesday, Oct. 17: 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
  • Tuesday, Nov. 6: 11 a.m.-noon.
  • Wednesday, Jan. 23: 11 a.m.-noon
  • Thursday, March 7: 11 a.m.-12:15 p.m.

All training sessions will be held in Torgersen Hall. Faculty will receive one NLI credit for attending. Those interested can register at app.nli.tlos.vt.edu.

The Turnitin software is intended to be used as an educational tool that is embedded throughout the student writing process. The utilization of Turnitin will propel Virginia Tech forward with 21st-century policies and the engagement of both students and faculty as partners in the learning process. For more information about how to use these tools, see the 4Help Knowledge Base articles for Turnitin - Feedback Studio.

Both TLOS and the Office of Undergraduate Academic Integrity provide support and advice on using these tools. For questions on how to incorporate and utilize the tool in Canvas, please contact 4Help. For questions about whether a report from Turnitin - Feedback Studio constitutes academic misconduct, please contact Jessica M. Beckett, assistant director of academic integrity education and marketing at jessm@vt.edu.

Written by Holli Drewry

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