Turnitin and Unizin Partnership Improves Research of Student Writing Performance and Outcomes

A new partnership between Turnitin and Unizin will give college and university instructors better data about how students write and revise their work. Turnitin has been at the forefront of academic integrity and writing solutions for 20 years, and Unizin is a consortium of top U.S. research institutions dedicated to improving access, affordability, and learner success in higher education. Unizin’s Data Platform creates a unified data portrait of students, which makes it easier for faculty to customize instruction and better understand likely student outcomes.

Retention and graduation rates have been trending downwards at many colleges and universities in recent years. Successful higher education completion is related to students’ ability to meet their courses’ rigorous reading and writing demands. This partnership gives faculty access to improved insights and data around student writing, which allows them to identify areas where students may need support, provide targeted instruction, and ensure institutional academic integrity. A better understanding of student writing progress and performance could help more students successfully graduate.

“At the University of Iowa, we utilize these solutions to make grading easier for faculty and to detect plagiarism,” said Annette Beck, a director in the University of Iowa Office of Teaching, Learning & Technology. “The tools also help students develop their writing skills and understand academic integrity principles, contributing to their success throughout and beyond their academic experience.”

Turnitin Originality Check will generate and send data to the Unizin Data Platform, which consolidates and commonly models many other learning behaviors and data. Unizin universities will leverage Turnitin’s potent data capabilities along with the rich data from this platform to develop research, analytics, and services intended to continuously improve learning outcomes.

“With the new Unizin agreement with Turnitin, we will now have access to information about students’ writing process and their reading process through the Unizin Engage platform,” said Anastasia Morrone, Associate Vice President for Learning Technologies at Indiana University. “Having this data in the Unizin Data Platform represents an exciting opportunity to explore how students’ reading and writing contribute to their overall success in college.”

“Since its founding, Turnitin has joined forces with higher education institutions to provide advanced digital tools that safeguard academic integrity and promote 21st century skills,” said Turnitin CEO Chris Caren. “Partnering with Unizin allows us to serve even more of the top research institutions in the country and ensures that our upcoming products remain in alignment with the ever-evolving needs of the higher education space.”

“We are thrilled to announce this partnership with Turnitin,” said Unizin Executive Director Rob Lowden. “In Turnitin, we have found a vendor who cares about the ecosystem, who sees in Unizin an opportunity to improve teaching and learning in higher education utilizing state of the art technology.”

Unizin, Ltd. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit consortium of 25 leading universities dedicated to promoting affordability, access, and learner success in digital education. Unizin’s interoperable technology ecosystem supports the diverse teaching and learning environments across its member institutions. Unizin solutions promote technology standards, enable integrations, eliminate the learner analytics black box, ensure accessibility of content and data, preserve and promote faculty choice, and support institutional collaboration. Unizin is operated by its member institutions through a Board of Directors. Unizin is headquartered in Austin, Texas.