Karen Hong

Karen Hong is a nursing educator at a large and diverse TAFE institution in Queensland and from her perspective, nursing is one field where academic integrity should be taken very seriously. Karen helps her students understand the importance of integrity, and particularly the importance of taking responsibility for their own work, through Turnitin. To support this understanding and their academic development she sets up test assignments at the start of the year for her students to submit their papers. She uses these to gauge their individual level of comprehension and then adjusts her teaching methods and tailors her feedback so to help them reach a suitable standard over the course of the semester.

Karen is very enthusiastic concerning the criteria of the feedback she gives her students.

“Feedback needs to be fast, efficient and received as soon as possible to make it relevant to the student,” says Karen.

She sets up her own QuickMarks in order to ensure that her students get bespoke and personalized feedback and uses voice comments, particularly when assessing group presentations or non written work, such as posters. Additionally, Karen comments:

“The amount of free time that I’ ve got to design more learning resources in context has tripled because I have reduced my time marking.”

Being completely “Turnitin self-taught” and making such strides in her classes using the tool, she has now been chosen by senior leadership to talk to and train other teachers regarding Turnitin and how they can utilize it for their own students.

Karen was a Turnitin Global Award Honorable Mention in 2016