Software Package and Information System (Plagiarism Detection) for Trinity College Dublin

This voluntary ex-ante transparency notice acknowledges that Trinity College proposes to renew a contract for 3 years, for the continuation of support and maintenance services. The current solution has been developed over the past number of years and delivers a cross campus solution for the following integrated services: Blackboard for student assignment submissions, similarity report outputs for plagiarism of content. Since 2018 Trinity College has developed internal processes around Turnitin to create efficiencies that have improved student outcomes and maintained educational standards. Academic staff within the teaching community and IT Support teams have been trained and developed expertise in using this product. Consequently service standards have improved and resourcing levels optimised in line with efficiencies achieved through the digital solution. The organisational and administrative burden of any change of the current system is highly likely to require enhancing staffing levels i.e. creating a new project team to plan for and implement a new product resulting in additional costs at a time when opportunities to decrease costs are being sought. Given the number of interfaces to other enterprise systems, there are no financially or administratively reasonable or viable alternative or substitute systems or products other than the existing installed Turnitin product, which can meet Trinity College's needs during the proposed contract period.