TWU's Academic Integrity policy reflects the university's pledge to champion and defend long-standing values of research ethics, personal integrity, and academic honesty. While students have the primary responsibility for being academically honest, level one and two violations of the Academic Integrity Policy reported to the Office of Civility and Community Standards are viewed primarily as "teaching opportunities."
The University subscribes to Turnitin, a web-based anti-plagiarism software service, which may be used by students or their instructors to compare the text of writing assignments to an extensive electronic database. While Turnitin is often used as a plagiarism checker providing summative feedback. Turnitin Draft Coach is used as formative feedback encouraging students to revise their written materials with the goal of improving learning through informed instruction. Turnitin's Draft Coach works in Microsoft Word online to help students correct any accidental plagiarism, citations, and grammar issues before submitting their work and avoiding violations of the Academic Integrity Policy.
Turnitin Disrupting Plagiarism Resources (Instructors)
The Turnitin Disrupting Plagiarism handouts and guides give instructors and students a more in-depth view of the writing process and reviewing similarity reports. Pick and choose the resources you want to download and use in your Canvas courses.
- Before writing – Turnitin suggests starting from the teaching guide. Use guided notes which will help students avoid plagiarism.
- During writing – Students need different kinds of support. Turnitin includs a lesson presentation that discusses different reach strategies. Research planning worksheets can help students keep track of and organize their research projects.
- After writing – This process usually takes place when we grade students' papers. Use the similarity report to review what the score means, how to use the results, and what conversations to have with students based on the information.
Turnitin Draft Coach (Students)
Turnitin Draft Coach is used to help students develop citations, research, and writing skills. Draft Coach is a Microsoft Word for the web add-in designed to assist students in adhering to academic writing requirements, such as referencing and paraphrasing, prior to submitting their final version for evaluation. Before submitting an assignment, students can login to Microsoft 365 online and use Draft Coach on their Word documents. Draft Coach only works with Microsoft Word for the web.
Access Draft Coach in Microsoft Word for the web
To access Draft Coach, Sign in to Microsoft 365 using your TWU email (username@twu.edu) and TWU Password.
- Write your paper in a new Word document or upload your Word document. When your paper has been typed and is ready to be checked
- Select the Turnitin tab at the top of our document, then select Draft Coach.
- A sidebar will open on the right. If the sidebar does not open, refresh your page.
- Click Go to Similarity ⇒ on the right. The next page will display. Click Run Similarity Check.
- Wait for the similarity report to give the results. The results will show the percentage in the Turnitin panel. Click on the individual results to show where the information was found.
- The Citations tab can be used to check Citations. This will display any issues found.
- The Grammar tab can be used to check for grammar errors and guidance.
Additional Information and Resources
Support Options
- Contact an Instructional Design Partner to design learning activities for students or talk about effective ways to interact with students using Turnitin in your Canvas courses.
- To request technical support, submit a Technology Service Desk email to start a ticket.