Turnitin Feedback Studio 4+

Like others, I used to find the IPad App a delight which really helped make smooth work of marking. Now the app is unfortunately completely unusable. Doesn’t synch, and only shows classes as no active classes! When it’s reported, advice is to use the web based service on a PC, entirely defeating the point of having an iPad app in the first place. I rather suspect Turnitin has given up on the App, in which case it would be helpful just to say so and put everyone out of their misery.

The summary comment box is where you’re most likely to write lengthy feedback for your student. It has two buttons, ‘Cancel’ (which deletes what you’ve written) and ‘Done’ (which saves it). BUT WAIT. You can also swipe the box down to the bottom of the screen, which is a totally instinctive thing to do if you’re on your iPad and you just want to briefly check on something that your student has written before you continue writing. But guess what?! Doing do automatically DELETES everything you’ve typed in the box since you last clicked ‘Done’! Absolute bane of my existence; the number of times I’ve either accidentally swiped it down, or swiped it down instinctively to look at the work before I’ve managed to catch myself, deleting loads of really carefully thought-through text. PLEASE FIX THIS!!!

It would also be very useful if this had decent manual mark up functionality. I have an Apple Pencil so I would very much like to circle and underline things on the screen rather than search through menus for the appropriate quick mark. Seems like a very basic omission for an iPad app.

On a positive note, I have (so far) not had the problems with syncing that other users have reported.

This was a wonderful app. I could mark from anywhere with incredible ease and I used it all the time. I loved it. Now though it simply does not work. I keep optimistically checking for an update to fix the issues, but it doesn’t appear. Best deleted and forgotten, but if I had designed turnitin I would be gutted. Such a fabulous app and concept that is now broken and unusable. If you are thinking of downloading it, don’t bother unless the reviews improve.