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Released July 30, 2009

These release notes cover what’s new, the known issues and frequently asked questions about the latest version of Turnitin and GradeMark.

Contact Helpdesk with any questions or feedback.

Products Affected

This release affects the following services:

  • Turnitin Originality Checking and Plagiarism Prevention application
  • GradeMark digital grading application

Features - Here's What's New in Turnitin and GradeMark July 2009

This release offers several often-requested features and improvements for Turnitin and GradeMark. The new features include:

In addition, the following new features have been available since June 30, 2009.

New Languages

Turnitin and GradeMark now offer the choice of 10 different languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Japanese, Korean, Malay Bahasia, and Thai. All 10 languages are available to all customers using the drop-down language selection menu in the upper right corner of every Turnitin web page. Papers submitted in these languages will be matched to an ever-growing base of English and non-English language-based content.

Performance Improvements

Recent upgrades to our application web servers have resulted in improvements to both performance and system reliability. GradeMark is showing dramatic speed improvements of approximately 3.5 times. Improved system reliability means that users will experience uninterrupted system access.

Changes to System Requirements

This release does not change any of the previously-stated system requirements as shown on << insert link to system requirements info >>.

Video demonstration of new features

Brief videos of these new features are available below:



Exclude bibliographic and quoted material from the Similarity Index assignment setting

Instructors now have the option to choose whether to include or exclude bibliographic and quoted material from the Similarity Index as an assignment setting.

Previously, within an individual Originality Report, instructors had to choose to exclude bibliographic and quoted material for every paper. Now, instructors will be able to indicate their preference at the assignment level. The default for all newly created assignments will be for this content to be INCLUDED.

This assignment-level preference can be changed up until the first paper has been submitted.

Instructors will still be able to view an individual Originality Report and change the individual paper’s settings to include or exclude bibliographic and quoted material.

This is an assignment-level setting rather than just an individual paper setting. Since the default setting is set to include all bibliographic and quoted material, instructors are encouraged to view the Originality Report to determine if matches are properly cited or not.



GradeMark: Flexible access to QuickMark editing marks and rubrics for integration users

Instructors accessing GradeMark through an integration with a learning management system (LMS) will have much easier access to their library of QuickMark editing marks and rubrics. Now, whenever an instructor creates new QuickMark editing marks or rubrics for a class’s assignment, they will be easily accessible through the GradeMark QuickMark and Rubric libraries, for use in all future assignments in all of the instructor’s classes. (A convenient link to the Help Center provides easy-to-follow instructions for how to import into the library the QuickMark editing marks and rubrics created prior to this feature, so that, going forward, they can be easily accessible for use in all future assignments for all of an instructor’s classes.)

This convenient access saves instructors significant time in locating previous QuickMark editing marks and rubrics and they can now easily see the entire set in a single master library.

For integration users, there is now a “master” library of rubrics and QuickMark editing marks that is accessible across all classes and assignments not just at the class level. Instructors will need to migrate any previous assignments into the new master library.



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.



Optional Exclusion of Small Matches in the Originality Report

Users Affected

Instructors and their students who are permitted to view their Originality Reports

Description of What's New

Instructors may choose to indicate that the Similarity Index for every Originality Report for an assignment should exclude small matches as defined by # of words or a percentage of words in a paper.

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 based on the amount of words in a match 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 text matches for an assignment. Now instructors have the flexibility to choose a minimum word number for matching content to be excluded from the computation of the Similarity Index and Originality Report. This flexibility provides instructors with an additional degree of control in evaluating student assignments.



Expanded Similarity Index Shows Sources of Matches

Users Affected

Instructors and their students who are permitted to view their Originality Reports

Description and 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 content in each of the following repositories: (1) 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.



Summary Reports for GradeMark Assignments

Users Affected

Instructors who use GradeMark

Description and 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 new feature represents learning-centric, analytic-reporting capabilities unavailable in word-processing programs.



Automatic Check of User’s System Capabilities with Turnitin System Requirements

Users Affected

All

Description and 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.



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 and 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 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.