Ayman Daoud

IT and Training Unit Manager, Ayman Daoud, leads the Information Technology Department and Training Unit in the Scientific College of Design in Muscat, Oman. 20% of its 1,450 student population is made up of private international students, and their higher education college accommodates 18 nationalities.

The Scientific College of Design has used Turnitin since 2017, following a previous OAAA (Oman Academic Accreditation Authority) pilot study for institutional accreditation. The pilot’s report displayed areas for improvement which Ayman, as a member of the SCD team, worked quickly to resolve.

After three years of hard work and diligence, the SCD team now comply with all OAAA requirements and received accreditation through the rollout of an e-learning system and Turnitin. They are now the 5th in the country to gain this recognition.

Through the implementation of Turnitin, the institution has been able to activate its longstanding academic integrity policy; however, Ayman notes that he ran into issues when attempting to introduce Turnitin to its 120 faculty members who were so used to traditional teaching methods.

“The main challenge was to convince them that this was the right thing because you are dealing with the digital generation; your students need to be fully equipped with the appropriate technologies.”

After incentivising Turnitin usage and providing orientation sessions and workshops, Ayman and his team have seen a huge increase in faculty usage, which has now filtered down to students.

When Turnitin was first adopted, in the first semester, the institution counted 150 cases of plagiarism; however, two years later, with ongoing education and generating Similarity Reports periodically to monitor performance, only 21 cases have been identified.

“Instructors are now more focused on giving intensive feedback on student research. They are helping students to write a proper research paper, with proper assignment structure and citation, that follow styles, like APA. By implementing Turnitin, it saves the instructors time, which helps to enhance the whole learning process.”