Center for Teaching & Learning: Turnitin Assignments

Create the assignment submission link

1. In your course, navigate to the content area where you'll deploy the assignment and locate "Build Content".
2. In the "Build Content" contextual menu, select Turnitin from the options.

In Ultra Courses:

From wherever you'd like the assignment to be available to students, access the "Create" menu and select Content Market

From the content market, scroll down to locate

Interface options have changed slightly:

1. Assignment title - we recommend adding "Turnitin Assignment" or something similar to inform your students that they'll be submitting to an integrated tool.
2. Max Grade - this replaces "Point Value"
3. Feedback Release Date - this replaces "Post Date"
   • If Anonymous marking is enabled, this is the date and time that:
     • The student names in the Assignment Inbox are revealed.
     • The grades are released to the Grade Center.
     • The grades are revealed to the students via My Grades.
     • The feedback is released to the students via Feedback Studio.
   • If Anonymous Marking is not enabled, this is the time and date that:
     • The feedback is revealed to the student via Feedback Studio.
     • The marks are visible to instructors via the Grade Center and to students via My Grades immediately after they are entered in Feedback Studio.
     • Instructors can hide the column in the Grade Center to prevent this from being released early.
4. Explore optional settings to further manage assignment settings
5. Don't forget to select "Submit"

Don't forget these important settings:

Submission settings

Submit papers to:

• Standard paper repository
  A copy of the assignment will be stored in the Turnitin database and will appear in future Similarity Reports.
• Do not store the submitted papers
  The assignment is not stored in the Turnitin database and will not appear in future Similarity Reports.

Allow submission of any file type

• Ticked
  This will allow students to submit any type of file including those that Turnitin is unable to display in Feedback Studio or generate a Similarity Report.
  In this case, the grader will be prompted to download the file and view it outside of Feedback Studio.
• Not ticked
  This will ensure students can only submit file types that Turnitin can display in Feedback Studio and check for originality.
  It will also check that the file being submitted contains a minimum of 20 words. If the file does not meet these requirements, the student is not permitted to proceed with the submission.

Allow late submissions

This setting permits students who have not submitted their work prior to the Due Date, to make one submission attempt after the Due Date. This submission will then be flagged as late by Turnitin. 

If the student has submitted their work prior to the Due Date, they are not permitted to edit, delete, or submit an alternative version of their work after the Due Date, regardless of this setting.

Enable Anonymous Marking

This masks the name of the student in the Assignment Inbox and Feedback Studio until the Feedback Release Date passes.

Note: See the Feedback Release Date above for more information on the effect of enabling Anonymous Marking

Enable grammar checking using ETS® e-rater® technology

Educational Testing Service, or ETS, is the developer of e-rater, a form of grammar feedback technology that automatically checks submitted work for grammar, usage, mechanics, style, and spelling errors.

Attach a rubric

Add a rubric or grading form to the assessment.

Compare Against

Tick the boxes of the sources Turnitin should draw on to compile the Similarity Report.

Similarity Report

Generate Similarity Reports for student submission

This controls when the Similarity Report will be created, and if students are permitted to resubmit their work prior to the due date.

• Generate reports Immediately (students cannot resubmit)
  This generates the Similarity Report immediately after the student submits.
  It does not permit the student to resubmit another file in its place – they are allowed only one submission attempt.
  Important If a student accidentally submits the wrong file they are not able to resubmit to upload the correct file. They should notify the instructor who should delete the incorrect submission in the Assignment Inbox to enable the student to submit again.
• Generate reports immediately (students can resubmit until the due date)
  This generates the Similarity Report immediately after the student submits.
  This setting allows the student to resubmit as many times as necessary up until the due date and time, each new submission replaces the one before and updates the Similarity Report.
  All Similarity Reports in the module are re-generated at the due date to ensure they are compared against each other.
• Generate reports on the due date (students can resubmit until the due date) 
  This generates the Similarity Report on the due date.
  Students can resubmit as many times as necessary up until the due date and time, each submission replaces the previous.

Allow students to view Similarity Reports

You can choose to allow students to see their Similarity Report.

Exclude bibliographic materials

You can choose to exclude the assignment’s bibliography from the Similarity Report.
Note: This setting can be personalized by the marker on individual papers in Feedback Studio.

• Ticked
  This prevents text in the assignment under the trigger words for references or bibliography from inclusion in the Similarity Report.
• Not ticked
  Turnitin will ignore the trigger words and include all the assignment text in the Similarity Report.

Exclude quoted material

You can choose to exclude text inside quote marks from the Similarity Report. 

Note: This setting can be personalized by the marker on individual papers in Feedback Studio.

Exclude small sources

You can choose to exclude small amounts of text from the Similarity Report. If Yes is selected, a dialogue box will appear to control the size of the excluded text either by percentage or by the number of words in the string.

Note: This setting can be personalized by the marker on individual papers in Feedback Studio.

Exclude assignment template

If you have a template such as a capstone template or an answer sheet that will be replicated in every student’s assignment, it can be uploaded to Turnitin to prevent it from appearing in the Similarity Report and skewing the score.

Additional settings

Save these settings for future use

This will save these settings for all submissions set up in the module.

Click Submit

Your link will be saved, and you will return to the content area.

The assignment inbox

Each assignment in a class has an assignment inbox. The assignment inbox contains any submissions that have been made by students or the instructor to the assignment.

• The top menu bar has notifications, a link to the Turnitin support wizard, and an option to edit the assignment settings.

• The search bar allows you to search through the students. The drop-down allows you to view your group and group sets.

• Select Download All to download all the papers. Use the checkboxes next to the papers to select papers, then Download Selected to download these papers. This button becomes active after the first submission has been made to the assignment.

• The refresh button  will check for any updates to the inbox without having to reload it. This includes any roster data that may have been updated.

The assignment inbox is a sorted list of columns containing information regarding submissions in an assignment. The assignment inbox can be organized by any of the criteria listed - for example, clicking on the column heading name of the author will sort the contents of the assignment box by the author's last name from A to Z. Clicking the column heading again will sort it again by the reverse of the criteria, from Z to A.

The column headings in the assignment inbox are:

Author - A column containing the names of any enrolled students and the names given for any non-enrolled instructor uploaded papers in the assignment.

Paper Title - The title given for any paper submitted. If there is no submission for a user, this field will list "no submission". Clicking on the title of a paper will open the paper in the Turnitin Feedback Studio viewer.

Paper ID - The unique numeric ID number assigned to every submission made to Turnitin. This column contains a dash if no submission was made. The paper ID is also provided to students or instructors when submitting by file upload or copy and paste as part of the digital receipt.

Uploaded - The date of a submission. Any dates shown in red indicate a late submission made after the due date and time of an assignment. The format is day-month-year. If no submission was made after the due date/time for a student, this column shows (late) in red. If the due date has not passed, students in the class with no submissions have a dash in this column.

Viewed - This icon indicates whether the paper has been viewed by the student. If the eye has a strike through it, the paper has not been viewed.

Grade - The grade column indicates GradeMark image availability. A blue pencil icon indicates that a paper is ready to be graded, but has not yet been graded. A gray pencil icon that no submission was made or that GradeMark digital assessment is not available for the class or account. Once a paper is graded, the point value given to the paper will replace the pencil icon in the grade column.

Similarity - The Similarity column contains the Similarity Report icon. The icon contains a percentage indicating the overall similarity of the paper to information in the Turnitin repositories: 100% being ‘fully similar’, 0% indicating ‘no similarity’. The icon is rectangular and contains the percentage number and the corresponding color. If only a grayed-out icon is available, the report is not ready. A dash in the report column indicates no submission or that no Similarity Report is generated based on assignment settings.

Options - This menu will allow the instructor to submit or resubmit on behalf of students, download the submission, or delete the submission.