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King's College London

Accessibility statement for Turnitin (Feedback Studio)

Accessibility statement for Turnitin (Feedback Studio)

Turnitin (Feedback Studio) is the online anti-plagiarism and feedback service for staff and students, that integrates with the King’s VLE KEATS (Moodle).

It allows learners to submit their assignments to an online service, that checks whether their submission cites sources correctly, is formatted using the appropriate referencing and style guidelines related to plagiarism issues. It also allows for staff to set up Turnitin assignments for file submissions by students, which markers can access to view and provide rich interactive feedback and marks for the students.

Our aim is for Turnitin Feedback Studio to be accessible to all those who use the service, and we continue to work towards this. We want to ensure as many people as possible can access Turnitin Feedback Studio to service to view, interact with and understand the content.

Using Turnitin

Turnitin is run by King’s College London IT, there are some additional features that will help individuals to navigate and use it.

For example, that means you should be able to:

  • Zoom in up to 300% without the text spilling off the screen.
  • Change colours, contrast levels and fonts.
  • Navigate most of the website using just a keyboard.
  • Navigate most of the website using speech recognition software.
  • Use screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver.
  • Use a range of devices to access Turnitin through KEATS e.g. mobile phone, tablet or laptop.

Technical information about Turnitin accessibility

King’s College London is committed to making Turnitin accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018. We work to achieve and maintain WCAG 2.1 AA standards, but it is not always possible for all our content to be accessible.

Turnitin has been used in the university for assessment in teaching & learning for over 10 years, with the integration with the KEATS (Moodle) being one used on a large scale by all staff and students. There are a few additional integrations currently in use through the plugins in KEATS, for example the Coursework Tool that will need further monitoring/testing, to ensure that the Turnitin integration is completely accessible.

We know that some parts of Turnitin are not fully accessible due to the complexity of the information and data stored, for details of how Turnitin is partially compliant, please see the Turnitin accessibility page and Voluntary Product Templates (VPATs).

Turnitin Feedback Studio component compliance

Turnitin have published a set of Voluntary Product Accessibility Templates (VPATs) which have details of conformance to A and AA standards for different components of Turnitin Feedback Studio KEATS integration, outlining key features where the standard is supported with exceptions. The following components that are part of the King’s Turnitin integration:

  • Feedback Studio PeerMark Interface
  • Feedback Studio Online Grading Interface
  • Feedback Studio Assignment Submission Interface
  • Feedback Studio Text Only Similarity Report
  • Feedback Studio LTI Interface

Turnitin is committed to ensuring their accessibility capabilities are kept up to date. Their accessibility program aims to incorporate accessibility into the entire product development lifecycle to ensure that their website and applications are accessible and usable by everyone regardless of disability or circumstance.

What to do if you can’t access parts of Turnitin

If you need information on Turnitin in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille email diversity@kcl.ac.uk.

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 7 days.

Reporting accessibility problems with Turnitin

We are always looking to improve the accessibility of Turnitin. If you find any problems that are not listed on this page or think we’re not meeting accessibility requirements email diversity@kcl.ac.uk.

Escalation procedure

If you need to escalate your issue further, contact Sarah Guerra, Director of Diversity & Inclusion via diversity@kcl.ac.uk. You can expect an acknowledgement of your issue within 7 days and a full reply within 14 days. If your complaint raises complex issues that cannot be answered within 14 days we will keep you informed of progress until we can fully respond.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

How we tested this website

This website was last tested on 29/30th September 2020. The test was carried out manually by Charles Kasule from Education Applications in the IT Services team in King’s College London. We tested:

What we’re doing to improve accessibility

King’s College London has convened a college-wide action group to address the accessibility of its digital information and actions are currently being undertaken around:

  • Assessing, prioritising and improving the accessibility of the 100+ digital platforms in use at King’s and highest priority is being given to those holding student teaching materials;
  • Improving the accessibility of online teaching materials;
  • Ensuring all future purchases or development of digital platforms are accessible;
  • Ensuring that all future teaching materials being developed and uploaded are accessible.

Platform-specific action plans to ensure accessibility will be developed by specialist action groups within King’s, but include:

  • All content (PDFs, Microsoft Office docs and other resources) uploaded to KEATS will utilise the Blackboard Ally on the KEATS platform, to provide a suite of plugins to improve accessibility related functionality for all users.
  • IT will continue to have regular meetings with the vendor to ensure any concerns are dealt with in a timely manner, along with ensuring that faculty staff work together with the Diversity & Inclusion on future projects to improve the system.

This statement was prepared on 24th March 2021. It was last updated on 1st April 2021.