Turnitin Releases Common Core Rubrics as Free Educational Resource

Open access to correlated rubrics helps educators implement standards and assess student writing

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Oct 18, 2012, 11:00 ET

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Turnitin, the leader in originality checking and online grading, has made the writing rubrics developed to align with the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) available free to educators world-wide through an open access license with Creative Commons. The license stipulates the rubrics may be shared and edited for non-commercial purposes. Previously, educators needed to be Turnitin customers using GradeMark to gain access to the rubrics.

There are six rubrics: grades 9/10 and grades 11/12 for argumentative, narrative and informative essay assignments. Instructors can register to access the rubrics at:

Common Core Writing Rubrics for Grades 9/10
Common Core Writing Rubrics for Grades 11/12

"The response on the rubrics that we've received underscores a significant and untapped need—one that we could immediately address by releasing the rubrics," said Jason Chu, senior education manager for Turnitin. "We believe their widespread use will help educators better prepare secondary students for college-level coursework."

The CCSS-aligned writing rubrics were developed in partnership with the English Professional Learning Council, comprised of educators from Saddleback College, the University of California (Irvine), California State University (Fullerton), and the Orange County Department of Education. The rubrics were made available to Turnitin users in September.

"When I discovered Turnitin devised rubrics based on CCSS, I saved time in meshing my planning and grading, as well as in grading the actual essays. A 30-percent savings, in fact," said James Horner from Bergen Catholic High School. "The Common Core rubrics are adaptable to any point-value. They are awesome!"

Turnitin hosted a series of free webcasts on implementing the Common Core rubrics. Register here to view the webcast titled, "Bridging the Gap: Common Core Rubrics for Secondary and Higher Ed."

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