Turnitin Adds Common Core Grading Rubrics to GradeMark

Correlated rubrics developed by Education Council to assess student writing

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Aug 29, 2012, 10:00 ET

OAKLAND, Calif., Aug. 29, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Turnitin, the leader in originality checking and online grading, announced the addition of writing rubrics aligned to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) to its award-winning cloud-based grading service, GradeMark. The six rubrics are available today within Turnitin for secondary and two-year instructors in the United States. View this video for more information on the Common Core rubrics.

Turnitin will host a free webcast on Thursday, Sept. 6 at 4 p.m. ET to discuss the development process and goals of the Common Core rubrics. Register here to attend the webcast titled "Partners in Education: Creating Common Core Rubrics."

"With 45 of 50 states adopting the Common Core, these standards are as close to a national writing standard as we have seen," said Jason Chu, senior education manager for Turnitin. "The addition of Common Core Rubrics within Turnitin will help schools implement the standards and improve student writing."

The rubrics were developed in partnership with the English Professional Learning Council to better prepare secondary students for college-level course work. The Council is comprised of educators from Saddleback College, the University of California (Irvine), California State University (Fullerton), and the Orange County Department of Education.

The Council assisted Turnitin in developing six CCSS-aligned writing rubrics for grades 9-10 and 11-12 for argumentative, narrative and informative essay assignments. Instructors using GradeMark can attach a standard CCSS rubric to any writing assignment to convey their expectations to students, assess submitted work, and track student progress.

"The Common Core rubrics allow instructors at all levels to promote more success in student writing," said Dawn Lewis, instructor at Aliso Niguel High School in Capistrano Unified School District. "The rubrics help narrow the expectations and language gap, especially for assessment, between secondary education and higher education."

About Turnitin
Turnitin is the global leader in evaluating and improving student writing. The company's cloud-based service for originality checking, online grading and peer review saves instructors time and provides rich feedback to students. One of the most widely distributed educational applications in the world, Turnitin is used by more than 10,000 institutions in 126 countries to manage the submission, tracking and evaluation of student papers online. Turnitin also offers iThenticate, a plagiarism detection service for commercial markets, and WriteCheck, a suite of formative tools for writers. Turnitin is backed by Warburg Pincus and is headquartered in Oakland, Calif., with an international office in Newcastle, U.K. For more information, please visit www.turnitin.com.

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SOURCE Turnitin