2025-2026 MELA Minutes

 Dr. LeBrun informed the group that once she receives feedback from the attorney, Jonathan, she will share the information. She stated that it may be time for the group to decide whether to continue the partnership with Turnitin. However, she highlighted that September or mid-September is a critical time to make this decision, as the RFP process is lengthy. She cannot guarantee that a replacement product would be in place by July 1st if the group decides to pursue an alternative.  Dr. LeBrun is also waiting to hear from Renee Marie at ITS, who has more expertise in the RFP process, to explore potential options. Additionally, Turnitin is now requiring an order form to be signed every year, which has not been part of the process in the past.  Dr. LeBrun will send the group a marked-up version of the contract for review but reminded everyone that the document is subject to confidentiality.  Dr. LeBrun highly encourages a support group looking at other options just in the event an RFP is needed. Also need to be looked at from a quantitative viewpoint. 2. Dr. Christa Wilhite (MCCB) a. Turnitin Usage Overview: Dr. Wilhite shared that the FY25 Turnitin Tool Usage by Classes at Mississippi Community Colleges report can be downloaded from the MELA course. This report provides a system-wide overview of the Turnitin LTI and the Canvas Plagiarism Framework, both of which are active at most institutions. Dr. Wilhite explained the primary differences between the two tools:  Turnitin LTI : o Provides a similarity report .

o Includes a separate grading dashboard. o Offers customized Turnitin rubrics . o Allows faculty to use pre-authored Quick Marks , which can be dragged and dropped into a document to provide feedback. o Includes PeerMark , Turnitin’s peer review platform. o Features Originality , which addresses AI-related components. o Also provides a similarity report . o Includes the AI portion of the similarity report, but it is Canvas-based . o Allows local Canvas administrators to access interactions within the gradebook. o Uses Canvas rubrics with institution-level outcomes embedded directly into the rubrics.

 Canvas Plagiarism Framework :