[Athen] TurnItIn and accessibility?

[Robert Beach]

It has been a while, but my findings were the same as Gregg's.  Not a good product in my opinion, but our college is still using it.


Robert Lee Beach
Assistive Technology Specialist
Kansas City Kansas Community College
7250 State Avenue
Kansas City, KS  66112
913-288-7671
rbeach at kckcc.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Kraus
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 2:07 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: Re: [Athen] TurnItIn and accessibility?

It's been about 18 months since I looked at it, but here is what I remember. Perhaps it is still relevant.

1. Getting your overall score/grade back was fairly accessible.
2. Going in to the document to see what was actually marked as potentially plagiarized will be impossible for some user groups, like people with visual impairments. (There might have been keyboard access problems too - I can't quite remember) 3. They also have some features where instructors can mark up assignments with comments within the TurnItIn system. These will also be very inaccessible to some user groups.

What I remember sounds very similar to what Penn State states online.
We are not currently using the product. Our campus is leery of plagiarism software in general. Back when we were looking at it the company did not seem receptive to any of my input. I hope this helps.

Greg
--
Greg Kraus
University IT Accessibility Coordinator
NC State University
919.513.4087
gdkraus at ncsu.edu
http://go.ncsu.edu/itaccess


On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 2:53 PM, Adam Lipkin <alipkin at brandeis.edu> wrote:

> Hi, folks --

>

> We're looking at TurnItIn, and I'm a little stunned at their lack of 

> information about accessibility. An initial search shows pages (like 

> http://accessibility.psu.edu/turnitin and

> http://www.colorado.edu/oit/services/teaching-learning-tools/desire2le

> arn-d2l/help/instructor-support/dropbox/turnitin-accessibility)

> that make me more than a little dubious about this product, but I 

> can't imagine that a product aimed specifically at higher ed hasn't 

> encountered this before. Anyone have any more info on how accessible 

> TurnItIn is (and how they've handled requests from customers here)?

>

> Thanks,

> Adam

>

> --

> Adam Lipkin

> Associate Director for Academic Technology alipkin at brandeis.edu

> 781-736-4795

> Brandeis University Library and Technology Services Mailstop 045 

> Waltham, MA 02454

>

> _______________________________________________

> athen-list mailing list

> athen-list at mailman13.u.washington.edu

> http://mailman13.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list

>

_______________________________________________
athen-list mailing list
athen-list at mailman13.u.washington.edu
http://mailman13.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list