Upholding Academic Integrity

Addressing plagiarism was a top priority for Hale School for myriad reasons. According to Toby Trewin, Director of the Hale Institute of Innovation and Research, “It was difficult to gauge how much [plagiarism] was going on, but the risk warranted looking for a solution to ensure authentic work from the students.”

Trewin adds, “Hale School is a community that inspires the authentic development of every boy. I think the key word there is ‘authentic.’”

In order to ensure adoption, Hale School wanted a solution that according to Trewin would be “easy to use, quick to use, and get results―otherwise it just wouldn’t be used by the teachers.”

Hale School has been using Feedback Studio for over 10 years now and does not see its relationship with Turnitin waning.

“We were looking for an industry leader in plagiarism checking,” says Trewin, adding that students’ use of Turnitin Feedback Studio in secondary school prepares them for university in Australia, where Turnitin is used widely.

Feedback Studio is used as a de-facto plagiarism check on campus and has “become a part of the learning culture where it’s just expected and not a shock,” says Trewin. In fact, Hale School has rolled out Feedback Studio to Year 4 students who are eight or nine years old. “The teachers tell me they’ve never seen their students so excited to come back and see how their work is rated. It’s good they get an early awareness about plagiarism.”

Additionally, teachers have maximised the various features in Feedback Studio. Namely, one teacher conducted a research project on the voice feedback, measuring “how long it took her to give voice feedback and noticed about a 50% time-saving in using voice comments versus written,” says Trewin. He continues, “There are some things you can’t actually write like the tone of voice and mannerisms that come through in voice. These types of features are transformational.”

Used in 45% of classes and by 40 instructors out of 168 teachers, Turnitin has reduced plagiarism cases to nearly zero.

Trewin observes, “I guess nowadays, probably the only time plagiarism does occur is in particular times when people don’t use Turnitin or they can’t use Turnitin. So, for instance, a student doing a presentation may share their scripts. It’s rare. But now, the teachers ask the students to put their speech through Turnitin before they present.”