Turnitin

Turnitin Support for your Students

As promised, here is a follow up blog post for Academic staff, focused on troubleshooting potential student queries and information about how to signpost issues to TEL.

The TEL Unit have a Turnitin help page for students, which tutors are welcome to share. The page contains resources and FAQs for common issues:

Turnitin Student Support and FAQs – Technology Enhanced Learning Unit

5 Student Turnitin Problems and Solutions:

1. Turnitin will not open due to an error message or internet connectivity:

If an error message appears or Turnitin fails to load up, this is usually due to browser or internet problems. Please signpost students to TEL tel@worc.ac.uk for support. Or to our Turnitin Student Support page. (Students need to ensure ‘third-party cookies’ are enabled for the Blackboard VLE https://worcesterbb.blackboard.com for Turnitin to open correctly. We recommend Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers.)

It is helpful if students provide us with a screenshot of the issue, if possible. However, if the due date is imminent, tutors can choose to accept an email copy of their student’s assignment and submit on behalf of the student instead.

2. The submission point will not open or displays an error message – due to the ‘Open in New Window’ setting being applied:

For some devices, if the Turnitin assignment submission point is set to open in a new window this can prevent access. For this reason, the default option in Blackboard is for Turnitin not to open in a new window for students. If you have added the ‘Open in new window’ setting, we recommend unticking this choice, by using the Blackboard three-dot menu for the Turnitin submission point:

3. A student cannot make a Late Submission to the original point:

The Late Submission setting allows students who have not been able to submit ahead of the due date and time to make one late submission in total. If a student has accidentally submitted an incorrect version of their assignment, either before the due date has passed or afterwards, it will only be possible for students to make a further late submission if a tutor intervenes. Tutors can contact us at TEL for support, as there are workarounds if you would like the student to have the opportunity to make another normal late attempt.

We have advice for the different types of Late Submissions in our Turnitin manual – for normal Late submissions, Resubmissions or Mitigating Circumstances.

4. A Student has submitted the wrong assignment to the submission point by mistake:

When the recommended settings are applied, if the due date has not yet passed, students can resubmit as many times as they wish up until this time. There is no need to remove a submission, as a new submission will overwrite the incorrect document. The previous incorrect version will not be compared for similarity checking.

However, if the due date has passed and a student has already submitted, they will not be able to make a further late submission (as described above). Students are not able to remove a submission themselves but module leaders can assist. Please feel free to contact the TEL Unit if you would like advice as a tutor.

Sometimes a student may have accidentally submitted an incorrect assignment to the wrong module, as well as to the correct submission point – If this has happened, please contact TEL tel@worc.ac.uk. Both module leaders will need to be made aware if the due dates have passed. If the submission points are summative, there will be a high similarity score match for self-plagiarism. (Self-matches could later be filtered out using the ‘Exclude Sources’ button by tutors: Originality Report.)

5. Students cannot resubmit, but the due date has not yet passed:

We recommend checking the option Generate reports immediately (students can resubmit until due date) has been chosen. (This option also allows students to view similarity reports before the deadline is reached.)

Unfortunately, it is easy to accidentally select a different choice here, due to the use of a drop-down menu. It is possible to alter this Optional Setting in Turnitin, by selecting the cog in the top right-hand corner. Please see our Checking or Changing the Settings guidance.

If Academic staff or students need any support with Turnitin, please do not hesitate to contact us at TEL tel@worc.ac.uk.

With the semester well underway we thought it would be useful to share helpful advice for common Turnitin queries. Staff are welcome to contact us at TEL tel@worc.ac.uk, for any technical assistance with Turnitin issues. Whether you need a hand with settings, information about rubrics and grading, or if your students require help with a problem.

5 Staff Turnitin Problems and Solutions:

1. How to Check or Change the Settings:

Ahead of students submitting their work, we recommend checking your Turnitin settings for individual submission points. If you are a newer member of staff, you can refer to our Submission Point guidance. New or existing staff can contact the TEL Unit for any Turnitin training needs.

2. Changing the due date and time:

Certain Turnitin settings are greyed out once a submission point has been created. It is possible to change the due date and time in Blackboard instead: Checking or Changing the Settings

3. Anonymous Marking:

Anonymous Marking is an optional setting which can be applied up until the first student submission attempt. Unfortunately, after students have begun to submit, it is then not possible to add this setting. If there is time, you could instead create a new submission point to allow students to resubmit anonymously.

If you need to reveal a student’s name in an anonymous assignment, please see our Turnitin Guide: Academic Integrity

4. Turnitin Rubrics:

We have the following instructions for creating Rubrics and for Exporting and Importing Rubrics: Exporting Rubrics. Once created rubrics belong to an individual user’s account, so the only way to share a rubric is through exporting them as a .rbc file. If Rubric (.rbc) files need to be available for different staff members to use in Turnitin, these could be saved in a central location to store securely, and make them easily accessible to course teams. (Such as a SharePoint site – in case of staff absence, or if a staff member later leaves the University.) Please be aware that .rbc files will not open in other applications; just Turnitin. So, the files can only be stored, but not opened or viewed elsewhere.

5. Similarity Report Queries:

We have guidance for Similarity reports in Turnitin, Submission Point – which includes our recommended ‘Similarity Report’ settings, the default ‘Compare against’ settings and how to ‘Exclude assignment template’ (if you have used one) from similarity matches.

‘Optional Settings’ in Turnitin allow you to choose to store papers in the ‘Standard paper repository‘ if this is a summative assessment, or ‘Do not store the submitted papers‘ if it is for formative use. When papers are stored in the ‘Standard Paper repository’, this means they are held in the ‘Global Turnitin Repository’. With the recommended assignment settings, students can view their similarity reports after each submission attempt, however, on the fourth submission they will need to wait 24 hours for the next similarity report to generate. Shortly after the due date and time has passed, Turnitin will run an additional ‘collusion check’, comparing all students’ submissions for the assignment.

For interpreting Similarity matches our TEL Turnitin guide gives an overview: Originality Report. This includes how to:

• Use the ‘Exclude sources’ button,
• Re-add sources back in
• Or how to alter filters for an assignment by adjusting thresholds to run a ‘New Report’ – if needed.

The Turnitin integration in the VLE uses the Feedback studio, ‘Classic’ similarity report view: Turnitin Online Guide: Navigating the Similarity Report – Turnitin Guides.

Please feel free to contact TEL tel@worc.ac.uk if you have any questions about similarity report anomalies. If required, TEL can also contact Turnitin UK directly.

*A note about Self-Plagiarism matches in the VLE: Turnitin is designed to find matches for self-plagiarism for Turnitin assignments held in different Blackboard modules, but self matches are normally automatically filtered out for different submission points within the same Blackboard module.

Our main TEL Turnitin resources and support pages are:

Staff:

• TEL Turnitin Guide: Turnitin for Online Assessment

• Turnitin enabled Blackboard assignments: Turnitin Originality Reports in Blackboard Assignments – Technology Enhanced Learning Unit

Students:

• TEL Unit: Turnitin Student Support and FAQs – Technology Enhanced Learning Unit

We will send out a follow up Turnitin Blog post later this semester, which will focus on common student queries that academic staff may encounter. It will include extra troubleshooting fixes and information about where to sign-post students for further technical advice from TEL. Please continue to contact TEL tel@worc.ac.uk with any staff or student Turnitin problems.