How to overcome the single-tutor ownership of Turnitin classes when marking a team taught course.

1. Turnitin: Supporting Multiple Administrators & Markers
Background
Turnitin supports a number of activities relating to assessment: electronic submission; originality
checking; and in a growing number of courses, the online marking and feedback distribution of
student assignments. All departments make some use of Turnitin, and over 36 000 assignments
have been submitted to the service in each of the last two academic years.
There is increasing interest among tutors and markers in both the originality checking and online
marking of student assignments. There is, among the academic departments, a diversity of
demands and available resources.
Issues
Most courses are taught and marked by a team of academic staff members, not just one.
Turnitin has a somewhat rigid approach to access and ownership, and generally supports only
one administrator and one Tutor / Marker per course. This lack of alignment can reduce the
effectiveness, or even deter meaningful use, of the service.
There are a number of solutions to this problem, but most will add considerably to the
administrative burden of the service. Departments administer and use Turnitin in a variety of
ways, and any possible solutions and recommendations have to be appropriate to the resources
available to administrators and tutors / markers.
Possible solutions; benefits & challenges
1. Use of Master Classes and Sections
All departments that use the system with the help of their administrative teams have
adopted this hierarchical approach. The Departmental Administrator creates a Master
Class to which they have access. Within this area a Section is created. The students
enrol upon this, while a single marker is assigned to it. This is where the assignments
are created, submitted, viewed and marked.
The advantages of this approach are that this maps closely to traditional and persistent
paper‐based approaches. In the interests of simplicity, there is only one area for users
to visit. The Departmental Administrator can view the whole process from creation
through to submission and from there to checking and marking.
2. Shared e­mail addresses
Where there are a number of Administrators supporting a department’s use of the
service, and this is recommended given the importance of assessment, a shared e‐mail
account, e.g. admin@music.rhul.ac.uk is used. This allows a team approach to
supporting staff and students in a department, especially when many administrators
work part‐time hours.
Please note that in the age of identity management, accessing another user’s account
does contravene RHUL Computer Centre guidelines ‐ http://tiny.cc/rhul‐cc‐guidelines
(See section 2).
Martin King
Senior Learning & Technology Officer @ Royal Holloway, University of London
13.05.11 page 1 of 5

2. Turnitin: Supporting Multiple Administrators & Markers
The creation and management of a shared ‘marking account’ is not appropriate for
more than two or three concurrent users as it could cause access issues and confusion
during the time‐critical marking and feedback period.
3. Rotation of Tutors/Markers
1. Create
Master Class
6. Assign 2. Create
different Section /
tutor to Assign Tutor
Section
5. View files
and 3. Create
Originality Assignment
Reports
4. Submit
files
Key
1‐3, 6: Departmental Administrator 4: Student 5: Marker
An additional advantage of the Master class / Section model is that it allows the owner
of the Master Class (The Departmental Administrator) to quickly change, at any time,
the owner of the section (the Tutor / Marker). This allows a controlled yet rapid
response approach to assessment management.
The rotation of markers (Task 6) works well with allowing a non‐concurrent access to
originality reports. However, this is limited where Turnitin is intended to support a
team‐based approach to marking (through the Grademark tool).
Martin King
Senior Learning & Technology Officer @ Royal Holloway, University of London
13.05.11 page 2 of 5

3. Turnitin: Supporting Multiple Administrators & Markers
4. Pre­submission workflow: Creating multiple sections to support team­based
marking
2. Create
1. Create Master
Assignment (with 3. Create Sections
Class
post‐dates)
5. Inform students 4. Push
6. Submit files of Section IDs and Assignments to
Passwords Sections
8. Mark and
7. Check for provide feedback
originality
(using post‐date)
Key
1‐5: Departmental Administrator 6: Student 7‐8: Marker
Notes
a) + Submitted work is ready for checking, marking and feedback as soon as it is submitted
– no further intervention is required by Departmental Administrators.
b) + Creating Assignments in Master Class and then pushing them to Sections is a
streamlined method – a single mouse‐click recreates the Assignment and all its details in
each of the sections.
c) ‐ Students will have to be divided into equal sized groups – one for each marker. A
Section is then created for each group. Students will need to know the details for only
their Section.
d) + An additional step (after 8) could involve assigning the course Leader to all the
Sections, or re‐assigning Markers to different Sections for quality control or second
marking.
e) ‐ Second‐markers would be able to see the trail left by the first marker, so this method
would not support double‐blind marking. The feedback would have to be initialed by
the markers in order to distinguish who wrote it.
Martin King
Senior Learning & Technology Officer @ Royal Holloway, University of London
13.05.11 page 3 of 5

4. Turnitin: Supporting Multiple Administrators & Markers
5. Post­submission workflow: Creating multiple sections to support
team­based marking
Model 1
3. Divide submitted
1. Submit files to 2. One Marker files into equal sized
Assignment checks for originality groups ‐ one for each
Marker
6. Edit the 5. Create new 4. Download
Assignment details to Section(s) ‐ one for submitted files as
NOT check for each additional .zip files to PC or
originality Marker network drive
7. Mark and provide
6. Upload .zip files ‐ feedback
one to each Section
(using post‐date)
Key
3‐6: Departmental Administrator 1: Student 2, 7 : Marker
Notes
f) ‐ Originality checking and Marking become separate activities in this model. Alternative
outlined in Model 2
g) ‐ Submitted work has to be redistributed by Departmental Administrator before marking
and feedback can begin.
h) + Creating Assignments in Master Class and then pushing them to Sections is a
streamlined method – a single mouse‐click recreates the Assignment and all its details in
each of the sections.
i) + Students submit to a single Section as normal – no need to complicate their enrolment
and submission activities
j) + An additional step (after 7) could involve assigning the course Leader to all the
Sections, or re‐assigning Markers to different Sections for quality control or second
marking.
k) ‐ Second‐markers would be able to see the trail left by the first marker, so this method
would not support double‐blind marking. The feedback would have to be initialed by
the markers in order to distinguish who wrote it.
Martin King
Senior Learning & Technology Officer @ Royal Holloway, University of London
13.05.11 page 4 of 5

5. Turnitin: Supporting Multiple Administrators & Markers
6. Post­submission workflow: Creating multiple sections to support
team­based marking
Model 2
2. Divide submitted 3. Download
1. Submit files to files into equal sized submitted files as
Assignment groups ‐ one for each .zip files to PC or
Marker network drive
4. Create new
6. Remove 100%
5. Upload .zip files ‐ Section(s) ‐ one for
matches from copy
one to each Section each additional
in initial sections
Marker
7. Mark and provide
feedback
(using post‐date)
Key
2‐6: Departmental Administrator 1: Student 7 : Marker
Notes
a) ‐ Task 6, the removal of 100% matches can only be performed piecemeal and is
impractical for larger cohorts or where there is greater time pressure.
b) + The Turnitin2 interface combines originality checking with marking and feedback ,
model 2 takes advantage of this configuration
Martin King
Senior Learning & Technology Officer @ Royal Holloway, University of London
13.05.11 page 5 of 5