Abstract:

The University of Bedfordshire made a very early transition to the electronic submission of assessments (known in the UK as EMA - Electronic Management of Assessment), but institutionally we moved away from a direct student submission to Turnitin's similarity detection service, and most significantly away from using Turnitin as a formative submission tool - where students could make informed judgements about their individual alignment with effective academic practice. Mid-2021 the University of Bedfordshire decided to reverse both policy positions: Turnitin is now the primary hand in mechanism for students' assignments, and students can now hand their work in formatively to Turnitin - students are able to see the similarity outcomes from formative submissions. Institutionally such a change would normally apply to new students who join us as foundation or first year students, but we have taken the opportunity to apply the change to all academic years of study simultaneously. However, there are a significant number of students who have no experience of Turnitin and the results that it provides. Using a case study approach, we examine our initial considerations in making an institutional move back to the Turnitin service, explain the institutional processes the required development and change, what considerations we made in informing our colleagues and developing their and our own practice, informing and developing students' skills, and the policy considerations appropriate for our context. The authors present their complementary perspectives (strategic and tactical) which inform both intersect with staff approaches to academic integrity and simultaneously developing students' academic voice. We consider and explain this change as part of a wider initial DBR (Design Based Research) iteration, and as a reflective exercise based on both authors' complementary experiences of dealing with the development of students' academic voice and academic practice. We share the techniques and methodologies we are using to engage with teaching staff, support staff, and students - thus offering an opportunity for our colleagues to explore, engage, critique, compare and challenge our approach. As such this DBR case study will be useful for colleagues considering adopting similarity detection as a basis for helping students to learn about the development of their academic voice, for colleagues who want to develop their own students' conceptions of academic writing, the meaning and intentions behind a developmental approach to improving students' writing by demonstration, experiential learning, and collaboration with students in the pursuit of students' academic voice.

Keywords:

Similarity, plagiarism, policy, DBR, design-based research, academic writing.