With the new Plagiarism API landing in Moodle 2.0 I’ve been working on the Turnitin plugin for Moodle 2.0 and backporting some of the new features in the 2.0 plugin into a new 1.9 version
The 2.0 version has the following features:
- Single folder for really easy installation – just drop it into a new folder called “turnitin” in the new /plagiarism folder in 2.0
- Uses Teachers own credentials instead of a “global teacher” account – makes for better integration with Turnitins other products like Grademark
- I mentioned it above – new “experimental” integration with Grademark. (needs a few victims to test/give me feedback)
- Better Date handling – uses the start/close dates in Moodle as the start/close dates in the Turnitin assignments it creates (although Turnitin doesn’t like start/close dates before the assignment is created so it uses the earliest possible date instead)
- More advanced setting of Turnitin features when creating/updating an assignment. You can now set:
- Whether to compare a submission against other students files
- Whether to compare a submission against Internet sources
- Whether to compare a submission against Journals, periodicals, publications
- When to generate the Originality Reports
- Whether to use an institutional repository (if set up)
- Exclude Bibliograpy references from the report
- Exclude quoted text from the report
- Exclude small matches from the report
- Improved performance and handling of errors (still more improvements to come over the next week on the error reporting page)
- Now creates assignment in Turnitin as soon as Moodle assignment is created instead of waiting for the first file to be submitted (it creates the assignment in Turnitin when the next cron cycle runs after the Moodle assignment is created)
- Easier integration with other Moodle modules (soon to come) – keep an eye out for integration with essay quiz questions and the Workshop module.
The new Moodle 1.9 version has the following new features:
- Better Date handling – uses the start/close dates in Moodle as the start/close dates in the Turnitin assignments it creates (although Turnitin doesn’t like start/close dates before the assignment is created so it uses the earliest possible date instead)
- More advanced setting of Turnitin features when creating/updating an assignment. You can now set:
- Whether to compare a submission against other students files
- Whether to compare a submission against Internet sources
- Whether to compare a submission against Journals, periodicals, publications
- When to generate the Originality Reports
- Whether to use an institutional repository (if set up)
- Improved performance and handling of errors
Sites using an older 1.9 version of the integration that wish to upgrade to Moodle 2.0 must upgrade their 1.9 Turnitin integration first – otherwise they will lose content/data during upgrade.
The new 1.9 version of the code is available as a git branch here:
http://github.com/danmarsden/moodle19-patch_turnitin
(this is based off the old mdl19-turnitin branch on git.catalyst.net.nz so if you’ve been using that it should be an easy switch)
Installation of this on an existing 1.9 site should only be attempted if you can easily manage significant customisations to your Moodle site (and know how to use git) – if this is new/difficult for you, best that you wait untill you upgrade to Moodle 2.0 – you can also get this code in patch or diff format here:
http://github.com/danmarsden/moodle19-patch_turnitin/compare/MOODLE_19_STABLE…mdl19-turnitin.diff
http://github.com/danmarsden/moodle19-patch_turnitin/compare/MOODLE_19_STABLE…mdl19-turnitin.patch
The 2.0 version of the code is available as a git branch here:
http://github.com/danmarsden/moodle-plagiarism_turnitin
or you can get it as a zip here:
http://github.com/danmarsden/moodle-plagiarism_turnitin/zipball/master
To install the 2.0 version – just grab the files above and put them in a new folder called “turnitin” under the /plagiarism folder in 2.0
then..
- Go to: Admin > Advanced features and select the checkbox “Enable plagiarism plugins” and save the settings
- Go to: Admin > Plugins > Plagiarism Prevention > Turnitin configure this page as usual
- Select the “Turnitin Defaults” tab and set the default settings you would like when a new module that allows plagiarism is created.
- Make sure Scheduled Tasks/Cron is running on your site
- Create a new Assignment and make sure Turnitin is enabled
- Submit a file
- Done!
I’m also working with Sergey Butakov to generate a Moodle 2.0 Crot plagiarism plugin – Crot is an open source based plagiarism tool that uses the MS Live (Bing) Search engine as a backend for comparing results – it’s not quite ready/working yet, but you can check out the progress so far here:
http://github.com/danmarsden/moodle-plagiarism_crot
For those wanting to create their own Plagiarism plugin with another tool, I’ve created a “new” template that can be used as a basis for creating your own plugin here:
http://github.com/danmarsden/moodle-plagiarism_new
and developer docs on the api are available here:
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Development:Plagiarism_API
It’s important to note that Moodle 2.0 doesn’t include any Plagiarism plugins by default – you must install them separately – but as it is all self-contained in a folder it is very easy to install. Inclusion of Plagiarism Plugins in Moodle Core may be investigated/debated/discussed in future (definitely not before 2.0 final release!)
Always keen to hear feedback – let me know how you go!
In some countries and some individual schools students have a right to opt out of turnitin because of the copyright in turnitin, privacy, and turnitin getting financial gain from their work. Does moodle plugin support this yet?
Hi Brenda!
The ability for individual users to opt-out hasn’t been a problem for the clients that have paid for the development and I haven’t heard from anyone using it who wants this feature. Giving students the ability to opt-out would likely defeat the purpose of using a plagiarism tool in the first place.. but I could be convinced to add it as an optional feature if someone paid for the dev! 🙂 The integration uses a disclosure statement when it is enabled in an assignment so that students are aware that it is happening – many institutions also include a link to their polices on plagiarism. Students could obviously manually submit their assignment via e-mail or in person to bypass the checks and discuss with their teacher/lecturer the reasons for objection.
The ability for the files to be kept in an institution “repository” and not included in the general Turnitin memory banks for comparison is an option with the new version of the plugin – (If this feature is enabled within the Turnitin account) Once enabled it lets each teacher decide when they create the Moodle assignment whether to store in the institution repository or in the global Turnitin one.
Institutions who have this concern may also choose to use a different plagiarism plugin – I’m working with Sergey and the Crot team on a “proper” open-sourced based plagiarism plugin for Moodle 2.0 – it’s just that the Turnitin plugin has come first as it has been funded 🙂 (thanks to all those who contributed!)
There’s a lot of debate out there from people who object to the use of plagiarism tools on principle – the great thing about Moodle is that it doesn’t force anything on anyone – it allows institutions the choice to install it and configure it how they would like it to be used. I just hope that more of them use it as a teaching tool rather than a “big brother” tool!
Your response is fair but i disagree with your conclusion that it doesn’t force it on anyone. If the decision is left to the institution then it is forced upon students.
I’ll pass a link to this page onwards to students i know who successfully campaigned for the right to opt out of turnitin.
Hi Dan,
While I hear you on the funding side, 2/3 of the universities in my hometown (Toronto) allow you to opt out of Turnitin. I personally have never allowed my writing to be submitted to Turnitin, despite this meaning that I sometimes need to submit rough work along with my papers, meet with the prof, etc. I refuse to have my academic work stored in perpetuity by an American company, specifically because 1) I’m not getting anything out of it and they are making money off it, and 2) because as an American company they are subject to the Patriot Act, thereby making my work accessible to the US Government.
Consider this a feature request, I guess? 🙂
-Leigh
Thanks Leigh – I’m aware that many students object to the use of Turnitin (there’s a lot of press coverage about this too) – but this is really an institutional decision – the site admin would need to “enable it” – I’m hesitant to use my own free time to add it based on student feedback or from people who disagree with the use of Turnitin – these people are unlikely to be able to make the decision to allow students to opt-out within their institution as this is more likely to be an internal policy decision (these people are also probably unable to fund my time to add the option) – I wonder anyone might actually use the feature too? – I certainly haven’t heard from any institutions using this integration that want it (yet).
Of course – if an institution does contact me and asks for the option to be added (and has the funding) I’d be happy to add it – or if their own internal development team makes the changes and submits a patch, I’d be happy to review that too!
thanks for the feedback!
Brenda – Fair point – yes it forces it upon students – but this is an “institutional” decision – not one that Moodle uses by “default” – it’s up to each institution how they manage this – (if they want students to be able to opt-out they could create 2 assignments in the course, one that uses plagiarism checks and one that doesn’t. But – the institutions I have worked with this on want to either – Force enable it for all assignments on all courses at the site level (which seems rather heavy to me) or allow their teachers to decide whether to use the tool for assignments they create. I know there are a lot of people who disagree with the use of Turnitin – but there are also a lot of institutions/teachers that want to be able to use it. We’re just providing those that want to use it the ability to use it in a simple way.