What's New?
On Saturday, January 2, 2010, we launched a wide range of new features and service improvements. Take a few minutes to check out a demo of all of the new changes.
PeerMark Demo from iP User Experience & Design on Vimeo.
To find out more about our new features, read below:
PeerMark
Users Affected
All WriteCycle licensees and Previous Peer Review users.
Description of What's New
PeerMark is the new peer review tool created to replace Peer Review. The goal of PeerMark is to encourage collaborative learning by allowing instructors to painlessly create and manage web-based peer review assignments.
PeerMark is available in English and Spanish as of January 2, 2010. Translations into other languages are being planned and will be announced later in 2010.
How is it different than the Previous version of Peer Review?
PeerMark embodies many of the same features as Peer Review but they have been completely redesigned to be more usable and stable. Also, PeerMark can be used through course management system integrations like Blackboard, Moodle or ANGEL.
Instructors will now have:
- A smoother, easier-to-use interface
- The ability to reorder lists of peer review questions
- Greater flexibility in setting up scale questions (formerly called metric questions)
- The ability to accommodate late papers
- A much easier set-up process for paper distribution
- The ability to automatically give students points for just participating in the peer review assignment
Students will now have:
- The ability to rate the reviews they receive
- The ability to mark-up and leave comments on the papers (similar to GradeMark)
- The ability to print papers for review and to print the reviews they receive
More Information on PeerMark:
- Flyer about PeerMark(pdf)
- Updated user manuals for Turnitin, PeerMark and GradeMark on our Support page
- Help Center articles available on our Help Center page
What will happen to the previous version of Peer Review?
As of January 2, 2010, if Peer Review is included in your institution's license but you never had used it before, Peer Review will be replaced by PeerMark.
Any instructor who has previously used Peer Review will retain access to Peer Review until July 7th, 2010, in addition to getting access to the new PeerMark service. From January until July 2010, these instructors will be allowed to create new peer review assignments in either Peer Review or PeerMark.
During this transition period, peer review assignments and questions will only be able to be seen using the tool that created them (Peer Review created assignments and questions in Peer Review; PeerMark created assignments and questions in PeerMark).
On July 7th, 2010, access to Peer Review will be removed from all accounts and all Peer review assignments will automatically be converted to read-only PeerMark assignments.
Improvements to Instructor Dashboard
As of January 2, 2010, improvements to the instructor's dashboard will make it much clearer and easier to use.
Users Affected
All instructors.
Description of What's New
Instructors will see two important changes as of January 2, 2010.
- Changes to the "New Assignment" screen
- Redesigned instructor dashboard to manage assignments
NOTE: This change does not affect instructors who access Turnitin through Blackboard, Moodle or other integration.
How is it Different than the Previous Version?
- Changes to the "New Assignment" screen
- Redesigned instructor dashboard to manage assignments
Before January 2, 2010, an instructor selected an assignment type from a drop-down menu as shown below:
As of January 2, 2010, an instructor will select the assignment type assignment using radio buttons, as shown below:
The new instructor class dashboard (formerly known as the class assignment list) provides a much cleaner, more intuitive experience.
Before January 2010, the instructor class dashboard looked like this:
As of January 2, 2010, the instructor class dashboard will look like this:
With this new dashboard, instructors will:
- See each assignment and all associated sub-assignments grouped into colored bands (rather than having sub-assignments indented under the assignment heading)
- See an indicator of how many students (out of the total number of students) have made submissions to the assignment.
- Click the "View" button to see the assignment inbox (rather than clicking the assignment title which was an active link that opened the inbox).
- Click the "More actions" button to edit the assignment settings, delete the assignment, or submit a paper from the assignment list.
Improvements to Student Dashboard
As of January 2, 2010, improvements to the student dashboard will make it much easier to keep track of assignments and submit papers.
Users Affected
All students.
Description of What's New
The redesigned student dashboard will help students keep better track of their assignments and provide easy access to important functions.
How is it Different than the Previous Version?
Before January 2010, the student class dashboard page looked like this:
As of January 2, 2010, the student class dashboard page will look like this:
With this new dashboard, students will:
- View assignments grouped (by base assignment) into colored bands (rather than by indentation)
- Click the link "Show Details" to see additional information about the assignment or to access Originality Reports and marked papers. (Formerly, they would click the assignment title link for more information.)
- See a status indicator (green, yellow or red) that lets them know the status of their papers and the assignment.
- See Submit and Resubmit buttons only when these options are available. The buttons have text rather than being an image of a paper with an upward pointing arrow.
Recommended Software Update for Institutions that Use Turnitin with a Blackboard or Moodle Integration
Users Affected
Institutions using Turnitin or GradeMark through Blackboard (Learn and Academic Suite ONLY) or Moodle.
Description of What's New
Institutions that use Turnitin through either Blackboard, or Moodle integrations are encouraged to download and install a new building block/plug-in from our website before July 1, 2010. The new building blocks/plug-ins will be available for download from within the account administrator's Turnitin Open Options for Integrations dashboard starting on January 2, 2010.
How is it Different than the Previous Version?
After downloading the new building block/plug-in, Turnitin Administrators will see the names of the instructors using the integration listed in their Turnitin stats and instructor lists once rather than multiple times or as pseudonyms like "Blackboard Instructor". Classes that have multiple instructors in the course management system will be listed under each of the instructors' names.
If an institution chooses not to download the new building block/plug-in, Turnitin (and all WriteCycle services) will continue to operate as in the past. PeerMark will be available to licensed WriteCycle or Peer Review users whether the new plug-in is installed or not.