Leonardo Yunda, María Luisa Barreto, Carolina Ortiz, Gustavo Rodríguez, and Divina Barraza make up the Originality Culture Team at Universidad Nacional Abierta y a Distancia (UNAD), in Colombia. They are in charge of managing and driving the academic integrity program, providing training for faculty and students in the use of Turnitin Feedback Studio (TFS) and supporting up to twenty teachers on a daily basis via Skype. The team is dedicated to expanding the culture of originality and the comprehensive use of Turnitin:
“We emphasize that it is necessary not to focus only on the similarity, but also… on giving good feedback. We try to help teachers by facilitating their assessment process, and we are helping students improve their writing. What is best [is when] they feel confident that their documents are reliable.” (Divina Barraza)
Instructors have adapted TFS to meet their needs in unique ways; for example, led by the Originality Team, they use voice comments for positive feedback, while any improvement suggestions are made via text. Voice comments give students a more personal, encouraging interaction with their teachers and, at the same time, text comments make it easier to revise.
“At the beginning, we had similarity percentages between 80% and 100%. Now, they’re in the range of 10% and 30%. This is telling us that students who are using the tool are improving their academic processes, their citing, and the quality of their writing.” (Gustavo Rodríguez)
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