(From Yvelin Yang of TurnItIn…) The following are descriptions of the 7 new features launching on August 1, 2009:
NEW FEATURE 1. Optional exclusion of small matches in the Originality Report
Users Affected: Instructors and their students who are permitted to view their Originality Reports.
Description & What’s New: Instructors may choose to indicate that the similarity index for every originality report for an assignment should exclude matches equal to or less than a certain percent (1% – 100%). The default setting is that ALL matches are shown.
The size of matches that have been excluded (if any) is clearly indicated on each originality report. Instructors can adjust the size of matches to exclude while viewing each originality report and those adjustments are immediately reflected in the originality report.
Benefit: Instructors may sometimes find limited value in seeing large numbers of small percentage matches for an assignment. Now instructors have the flexibility to choose what level matches should be included in the computation of the similarity index and highlighted in the originality report. This flexibility provides instructors with an additional degree of control in evaluating student assignments.
NEW FEATURE 2. Expanded Similarity Index shows sources of matches
Users Affected: Instructors and their students who are permitted to view their Originality Reports.
Description & What’s New: In addition to the overall similarity index (defined as the percentage of words in a paper that match sources in the Turnitin databases), each originality report will display the percentage of the paper’s content that matches each of the following: (1) other student papers, (2) the web, and (3) periodicals, journals and publications.
Benefits: Instructors receive richer information to help them determine if a paper contains potentially problematic matches due to copying, collusion, citation oversights, or other issues. This expanded similarity index can save instructors significant time in evaluating each batch of student work.
NEW FEATURE 3. Summary Reports for GradeMark assignments
Users Affected: Instructors who use GradeMark.
Description & What’s New: A summary report in table format for GradeMark that shows a list of all the graded papers in an assignment and how many times each QuickMark was used on each one, and every rubric criterion rating.
Benefits: This new summary table in GradeMark…
- Provides instructors with better information for formative assessment of student writing skills.
- Allows instructors to more quickly identify learning patterns among their students and determine which rubric criteria or writing skills (specific composition, format and usage skills) show strength or weakness.
- Helps instructors to more effectively tailor their instruction to the specific needs of their students.
- Provides a significant advantage over using the commenting tools in standard word-processing applications; this represents learning-centric, analytic-reporting capabilities unavailable in word-processing programs.
NEW FEATURE 4. Optional poll for comparing time spent grading papers with GradeMark vs. other methods
Users Affected: Instructors who use GradeMark.
Description & What’s New: GradeMark instructors will see a non-intrusive link on the assignment page inviting them to take a voluntary poll. Instructors can choose to track and report the time they spent grading papers for the assignment using GradeMark; the number of papers represented by that time; and their estimate of how long it would have taken to grade those papers by other methods.
They can click a summary to see results across all GradeMark users, including: total instructor grading time saved by using GradeMark, and Average grading time saved per paper.
Benefit: The results of this OPTIONAL poll will help GradeMark users and their institutions encourage their colleagues across all disciplines to make use of GradeMark’s productivity-enhancing, methods for 100%-digital grading of student papers. This will also provide iParadigms with crucial input from GradeMark users to drive future product development efforts to further improve the time-savings achieved by using GradeMark.
NEW FEATURE 5. Auto-check of user’s system capabilities with Turnitin system requirements
Users Affected: All.
Description & What’s New: Upon login, Turnitin will compare a user’s system capabilities to the minimum system requirements (e.g. operating system versions, supported browser versions, settings for cookies and enabling Javascript), and provide information on how to address any issues to meet the requirements.
Currently, information on minimum system requirements is not highly visible and users have no easy way to determine if their set-up meets these requirements. Now, minimum system requirements will be prominently displayed and users will be assisted with making sure their system meets these requirements.
Benefit: This auto-check reduces user frustration and requests for support – especially for new users. Users are encouraged to proactively address issues with their system’s set-up rather than requiring them to react to problems that occur.
NEW FEATURE 6. Improved handling of document submissions and multiple file uploads
Users Affected: Students and instructors, especially those that submit large documents or large batches of papers to Turnitin.
Description & What’s New: New productivity and usability enhancements for submissions that:
- Double the size limits for individual file submissions (from 10MB to 20MB) as well as zip file (batch) uploads (from 100MB to 200MB).
- Improve user notification for submissions that exceed the maximum sizes (and guidance to help fix the issue).
- Streamline the process for uploading zipped files of multiple documents.
- Currently, instructors must repetitively select and tag each document (author name, email, paper title) for upload. Now instructors will select multiple files and conveniently enter document information into a table.
- Show a progress bar indicating the status of uploads.
Benefits: This improved process for submissions gives users with a more transparent user experience, more convenience and time-savings because they…
- Reduce the need to break large documents into smaller ones or to create smaller zip files.
- Provide immediate and actionable feedback when a user tries to submit a file that is too large.
- Reduce repetitive, multi-step tasks associated with file uploads and clearly indicate when an upload is in progress.
NEW FEATURE 7. Systemwide font upgrade
Users Affected: All.
Description and What’s New: All Turnitin, GradeMark, Peer Review and WriteCycle features will now use Arial as the default screen display font (instead of Verdana).
Benefit: The use of Arial will improve the legibility of the site and reduce layout issues.
Any questions, contact Laurie Vasquez in the FRC at vasquez@sbcc.edu or at X2794.
Announcements | David Wong | 
November 5, 2009 10:35 am | 
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