Turnitin

Turnitin is a cloud-based solution with capabilities in originality checking and online grading using their Similarity Report and Online Grading tools. Turnitin saves instructors time and facilitates personalized feedback for learners.

Similarity Report lets you monitor Assignment submissions and identify potential cases of plagiarism by automatically comparing submissions to an online database of original content. You can then view Originality Reports which highlight key areas, show a breakdown of matching sources, and provide direct links to the matching content.

You can also take advantage of the integrated Online Grading which lets you add comments, inline text, and highlight sections in file submissions, directly from the Assignments tool. Learners can view Online Grading feedback in User Progress under Assignments, in Grades, in Assignments, in User Progress under Grades, and in Content.

Note: The use of Turnitin combined with the special access features in the Assignments tool is not supported. If you set a due date for a user with special access that is different than the due date set on the Turnitin tab, the Turnitin due date does not change.

Enable Turnitin for an Assignment

To enable Turnitin for an existing assignment:

Select the dropdown arrow next to the Submission folder.
Select Edit Folder.
The "Edit Folder" page will open.
Select the Evaluation & Feedback tab.
Under "Turnitin Integration" click on "Manage Turnitin".
A popup window will open. Select the box next to "Enable Originality Check® for this folder." [A]
Optional: Select the box next to "Allow learners to see Turnitin® similarity scores in their submission folder" to enable student view of the Turnitin score on a submission [B].
Optional: Select an option under "Submissions checked" to enable Turnitin only for select students [C].
Once finished choosing settings, select Save.
The window will close. Select Save and Close.

screenshot showing controls to enable turn it in

Note: To provide students with access to the originality scores, select Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their submission folder while customizing settings for the Submission folder.

About Turnitin-enabled Assigments

Consider the following when creating or editing your Turnitin-enabled assignment:

When creating a new assignment, the name of the folder in Turnitin truncates after 99 characters, even though the Name field accepts 128 characters.
When you copy course components from one course to another, confirm that all settings are configured for the Turnitin-enabled assignments in the new course.
If you want learners to see instructions on the Submit Files page, you must enter them into the Instructions rich text field in the Properties tab. These instructions are automatically transferred into Turnitin. Any instructions you enter in the Properties tab overwrite instructions entered into Turnitin.
If Online Grading is activated for your org unit, in the Turnitin tab, the Online Grading Available to Learners date defaults to the current date and time, plus 7 days. In the Restrictions tab, if you select Has End Date, the Online Grading Available to Learners date automatically sets to the end date, plus 1 day. You can change either of these dates if needed.
If you want to automatically transfer scores as draft to Brightspace Learning Environment, on the Turnitin Integration page, select the Automatically sync grades as Draft in Brightspace radio button or select the Manually sync grades as Draft in Brightspace radio button to make it a manual step.
If you want learners to see the Originality Score link to Turnitin:
- Your administrator must map their role to the Learner IMS role.
- In the Properties tab, ensure Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their assignment submissions folder is selected. This option is selected by default.
- In Turnitin, under Optional Settings, ensure Allow learners to view Originality Reports? is set to Yes. This option is set to Yes by default.
In the Properties tab, if you select Allow learners to see Turnitin similarity scores in their assignment, the equivalent option in Turnitin called Allow learners to view Originality Reports? is automatically set to Yes.
In Turnitin, under Optional Settings, Allow late submissions? defaults to Yes. This means you don't need to change end dates to allow learners to submit late assignments.

About Turnitin-enabled Group Assignments

Consider the following when creating or editing your Turnitin-enabled group assignment:

D2L recommends that you hide the Originality Score since group members cannot follow the link to view the Originality Report.
In Turnitin, under Optional Settings, Allow late submissions? defaults to Yes. This means you don't need to change end dates to allow learners to submit late assignments.
In Turnitin, under Optional Settings, the Student paper repository option is disabled by default. This is so that Turnitin doesn't think submissions from members of the same group are plagiarized.

Exempt Individual Users from Turnitin

To exempt individual users from Turnitin, your administrator must enable Turnitin for the Assignments tool for your organization or your course. Turnitin exemptions apply to all assignments within a course.

On the Assignments page, from the More Actions context menu, select Manage Preference for Turnitin®.
The Manage Preference for Turnitin® page displays where you can select individual users to be exempt from Turnitin using the toggles. An X on the toggle means that the learner's submissions are exempted from Turnitin. A checkmark on the toggle means that the learner's submissions will be checked by Turnitin.

Viewing Similarity Reports

You can view Originality Reports from the Submissions page. When a report is available, the status changes from In-Progress to a percentage rating, which indicates the level of matching content. (Note: Originality reports usually only take a few minutes, but sometimes it can take up to 24 hours.)

Select the name of a Submission folder to view the files submitted to it.
In the list of submissions, the indicators under "Turnitin Similarity" show the percentage of the paper that Turnitin matched in its database. If plagiarism detection is enabled after files have been submitted, select the Submit File to Turnitin icon, in the Turinitin Similarity column, to submit the file to Turnitin manually. The icon will be replaced with "In Progress" until this process is complete.
In the "Turnitin Similarity" column, select the colored box to see the full originality report.

A lower percentage rating indicates that the content is likely original and has not been copied; a higher percentage rating indicates the content is likely not original and has been copied from another source.

The percentage ranges are associated with colors:

Blue >= 0 and < 20%
Green >= 20 and < 40%
Yellow >= 40 and < 60%
Orange >= 60 and < 80%
Red >= 80 and <= 100%

Click the colored section beside the percentage rating to view the associated Originality Report. The Originality Report is comprised of two panes. The right pane lists all of the matching sources, including the percentage of text that matches and a link to the online content. The left pane displays the submission text using colored highlights to draw attention to the matching content.

File Types Supported by Turnitin

The following file types are compatible with Similarity Report:

Microsoft Word (DOC, DOCX)
Corel WordPerfect (WPD)
Adobe Acrobat PDF
HTML (HTM, HTML)
Rich text (RTF)
Plain text (TXT)
Hangul Word Processor (HWP)
PostScript (PS)
Microsoft Excel (XLS, XLSX)
Microsoft PowerPoint (PPTX, PPT, PPSX, PPS)

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