Writable provides several strategies to ensure that students are composing original and authentic writing. Authorship alerts give teachers insight into the student's writing process and flag behaviors that indicate they may have plagiarized, used AI to generate their writing, or completed substantial revisions and edits of their drafts.
Note: Writable's Authorship Alerts may not be accurate for embedded Google Docs or imported work.
You can view Authorship Alerts in two ways:
From the Student Dashboard: Click on an assignment and select a class to open up the Student Dashboard. From here, navigate to the Authorship column where you will see a colored dot.
From the Grading Stack: While reviewing student work in the grading stack, the Authorship Alert will show at the top of the rubric.
In this article
What do authorship scores mean?
Overall Scores
Writable provides four color-coded overall authorship indications, which can provide a quick measure of student behavior while drafting. Authorship scores consider whether students pasted large blocks of text into Writable, as well as the time spent drafting and editing their work.
Here is what each color indicates:
Red: The full submission was pasted into Writable by the student (limited or no changes were made).
Orange: The submission was started by pasting a large block of text and then was edited in Writable.
Yellow: Several blocks were pasted into Writable and the time spent drafting is below the typical range.
Green: Student drafting time for the assignment falls within the typical range.
Grey (or a dash): There is no draft history (for example, an assignment was imported).
Score Detail
To view additional detail on scores and class averages from the Student Dashboard, hover over the Authorship score next to a student's name. You will also see additional details about AI detection.
Drafting: Measures how student writing builds over time, given in words per minute.
Revising: The number of revisions indicates large sections of text that were modified by the student. Revisions impact overall structure, organization and ideas of the submission.
Editing: Student edits are tracked by considering changes made within a sentence, such as spelling and grammar, or word choice.
In the Grading Stack, click on the Authorship button. This will open a pop-up modal with details of the student's work and the class averages.
How can I make the most of authorship alerts in Writable?
Below are three strategies for using and considering Writable's authorship alerts and scores.
Ask students to complete all their writing in Writable
To make full use of authorship alerts, set expectations for students to complete all writing while logged into Writable. Students will be able to utilize all the many writing supports in Writable, and pasting large portions of text will more likely indicate plagiarism or the use of AI-generated text.
Use multiple measures and prior student performance when considering scores
Run the Originality Checker and consider scores along with authorship alerts. If you notice a student with a high similarity or AI Detection score, authorship alerts can support your analysis of whether that student's writing is original. You can also compare students' writing against a previous writing submission and note if the writing differs significantly from prior work. If so, it may indicate inauthentic writing.
Consider Writable feedback and AI supports and time allotted for revision
Writable provides numerous supports and feedback options to encourage student revision, such as self and peer review, AI-suggested comments, and GrammarAid. Authorship revising and editing scores are shown as compared against class averages. If you've enabled GrammarAid, sent AI Comments, or provided feedback and time for revisions, authorship scores are a quick and easy way to determine if students are spending time revising and editing their writing.