NoRedInk Originality Insights

We’re excited to announce our new Originality Insights, which are reports that provide more visibility into the student drafting process to better inform teachers how student writing is evolving!

What are Originality Insights?

These insights include the following data: time spent per draft, copy-paste detection, and pasted text percentage. This data provides visibility into the student drafting process, promoting informed decision-making and communication with students, and allowing you to give students tailored instruction and support.

Pasted Text Insights

Located on the Assignment Results page, the Pasted Text insights help you quickly identify submissions with significant amounts of pasted text from external sources. Examples of pasted text that would be tracked include but are not limited to:

• Text from websites
• NoRedInk prompts
• Passages within NoRedInk assignments

❗ This does not include text that students write directly in the current assignment's editor and then move around within the same assignment.

The Pasted Text insight shows the proportion of text pasted into the NoRedInk assignment while students are writing. This is calculated by dividing the number of characters pasted into the submission by the total number of characters in the submission.

NoRedInk's Pasted Text threshold is set to 40% to flag assignments that are more likely to include unusual behavior and may require your support.

• A purple diamond indicates the amount of pasted text exceeds 40%.
• A green circle indicates the amount of pasted text falls below 40%.

While on the Grading page, you can also view the pasted text highlighted directly in the editor, as well as the percentage of pasted text at the top of the student's work.

Time Tracking Insights

Our Time Tracking Insights provide the time the student's writing was submitted and the time spent on the assignment to help you understand how long students are engaging with their writing. There are two locations where you can view your students' times as they work, the Assignment Results dashboard:

1. On the Assignment Results page, you can view the following data:

• • Time Started: This is when the student first interacted with the assignment.
  • Time Submitted: This is when the student submitted their most recent draft.
  • Time Spent: This reflects the total time worked across all drafts. 

Time Spent is tracked based on keystrokes and mouse clicks in the assignment. This does not track activity happening outside the assignment, such as browsing other websites, reading source PDFs, or when the student steps away from the computer. Time Spent also tracks when the student is using read-aloud on a source in the assignment or their writing.

2. On the Grading page of the assignment, you can view the following data:

• • Time Spent: This shows the time spent per draft. 

This allows you to see how much time the student spent working on each draft for comparison purposes and deeper insights.

💡 Time Spent and Pasted Text metrics won’t be available on the grading page until the student submits a draft.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which assignments have Originality Insights?

All Quick Writes and Guided Drafts created after October 18, 2024 will include these insights.

Does Originality Insights detect plagiarism?

Originality Insights cannot determine whether a student has plagiarized their writing. However, the copy-paste detection included in Originality Insights can alert you to relevant information as you determine if a student used text that is not their own. Originality Insights does not judge the student writing sample for authenticity.

What if my student copies work from another source?

If a student pastes an entire draft from another tool (like Google Docs), the entire submission will be flagged as pasted text. If you are aware of your students using external sources to draft their work, the pasted text insights can help you track how students revise their initial drafts and provide an opportunity to discuss the importance of original work.

Can I see insights while a student is still working?

Yes! For in-progress assignments, you can view:

• Start Time
• Time Spent

These are visible on the Assignment Results page under the Still Working section. On the Grading page, you can view the pasted text highlighted on the assignment but Time Spent and the Pasted Text metrics will not be available on this page until the student submits a draft.  

Does Originality Insights affect the student's score?

No, the Pasted Text and Time Spent do not affect the student's final score. These serve as information for you to consider when reviewing the submission but they do not influence auto-grading or word count scores.

Can students see these insights?

No, students do not have access to this data. Only teachers can view the percentage of pasted text, the time spent on the assignments, and the paste highlights on the Grading Page and Assignment Results page.

How is time spent calculated for assignments with interactive tutorials?

Time Spent is measured from the point when the student interacts with the assignment after completing the interactive tutorial. The tutorial itself is not included in the time calculation.

Best practices for using Originality Insights

1. Use Originality Insights as a way to prioritize which student submissions to look at more carefully. A significant amount of pasted text or a short amount of time spent on an assignment could indicate that a student has included writing that isn’t their own.
2. Use Originality Insights to help you make educated decisions about whether a student has plagiarized or used GenAI, but keep in mind that the insights do not detect plagiarism. We know that teachers are best positioned to determine if pasted text is plagiarism or not.
   • Some types of legitimate pastes you may see include:
     • The student’s writing that was initially drafted elsewhere
     • Evidence from a source
     • Works Cited information (e.g. author names, titles, or links that a student has copied from elsewhere)
     • Words from an online dictionary or a thesaurus
     • Words or sentence stems from the prompt

3. Continue supporting students in generating their own original ideas and effectively citing sources! Here are some additional resources:
   • Scaffolded assignments like Guided Drafts can help build student confidence in their writing.
   • Pre-writing and brainstorming activities can help students get over the hump of the blank page. Check out our pre-writing materials for essays.
   • Assign practice topics on evidence, citations, and plagiarism so that students learn how to use sources and cite them correctly.
   • Help students understand appropriate ways to use AI, as well as its limitations. Check out our Artificial Intelligence and Writing Quick Writes.