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Turnitin Assignments in Ultra Courses


Turnitin is a learning integration tool used to check for potential unoriginal content within submissions by generating similarity reports. 

If you are going to use Turnitin assignments in your course, per University policy, you are required to notify students in advance that you are going to use the software. The Academic Affairs office has created a statement that should be included in the course syllabus to notify students that Turnitin will be used within the course.

Add Turnitin Assignment

To add a turnitin assignment to your course, click on the purple plus sign in your course content area and select Content Market from the dropdown list. This assignments act as a standard content item and can be moved or created inside of folders or learning modules.


Select the Turnitin tile from the content market.

Complete the fields from the pop up menu. 

In Blackboard, the post date relates to the availability of GradeMark papers only and has no bearing on when grades are posted to the Blackboard Gradebook
  •    Enter the title, instructions, and max grade in designated boxes
  •    Select Start Date (when the assignment will be available to the students)
  •    Select Due Date (when students must have the assignment submitted)
  •    Select Feedback Release Date (when you will have feedback/grades posted for the students)

Then press save to complete the assignment.


Most assignments are made with the default settings. Below are the additional optional assignment settings that include submission, compare against, similarity report, and exclude assignment template settings. 

To view the optional settings, click on optional settings near the bottom of the assignment panel:

 Submission Settings

The submission settings are for choosing how the submission will be stored and other submission related settings. The default setting is the standard paper repository, the submissions will be stored in the global paper repository. There are also more settings below the dropdown including allowing submission of any file type, allowing late submissions, and other submission related settings. 

For more information on the submission settings, please visit this Turnitin page:

 Compare Against

 The compare against settings allows you to select what repositories the submissions are compared to when the software creates the similarity report. By default, papers are compared against all four repositories: student paper repository, institution student paper repository, current and archived web site content, and periodicals, journals, and publications. 

To learn more about the different repositories please visit this Turnitin page: 

 Similarity Report

The submitted paper is compared to Turnitin's primary databases. Turnitin then generates a similarity report, which indicates whether the student properly cited all sources and if additional measures or help may be warranted. The similarity report has options for when the similarity report is generated, available to students, and if the student can resubmit. By default, the similarity report is generated immediately and is available to students. The dropdown menu can be used to change between the options for generating the similarity report. There are options below the dropdown menu for excluding portions of the paper. For more information on the similarity report, please visit this Turnitin page: 

 Exclude assignment template

If you would like your students to use a template you provide for the assignment, you can upload a template to the turnitin assignment so that the template is excluded from the similarity report. For more information about excluding assignment templates, please visit this Turnitin page to explore more about this option: 

 Additional settings

Under additional settings, you can save the settings you set for future use. 




Optional Assignment Settings

 Optional Settings

Before posting the assignment, click on the Optional Settings above the submit button to select additional instructions for the assignment.  From the drop down menu, select which paper repository you would like to submit papers to.

  • Standard paper repository: Turnitin will store a copy of the submitted cocument only in the Standard Repository.  By choosing this option, Turnitin is instructed to only use stored documents to make similarity checks against any documents submitted in the future.
  • Institution paper repository: Choosing this option instructs Turnitin to only add submitted documents to a repository private to your institution.  Similarity checks to the submitted documents will only be made by other instructors within your institution.
  • Do not store the submitted papers: Turnitin is instructed to not store submitted documents to any repository.  Turnitin will only process the paper to perform the initial similarity check.

Check the appropriate boxes for additional settings for your assignment.  To learn more about the options, click on the question mark next to the item.


 Similarity Report

The submitted paper is compared to Turnitin's primary databases. Turnitin then generates a similarity report, which indicates whether the student properly cited all sources and if additional measures or help may be warranted.

Choose similarity reports for student submission:  Select one of the following options from the Generate Similarity Reports for student submissions drop down menu to determine when Similarity Reports will be generated

  • Generate reports immediately (students cannot resubmit):  This option generates reports immediately after the student has submitted a file. Students may only submit one file for review, and are not allowed to resubmit work for the assignment until the instructor deletes the student's previous submission.

  • Generate reports 
immediately (students can resubmit until due date): After 3 re-submissions, reports generate after 24 hours — This option allows students to resubmit files as many times as they like up to the due date, replacing the previous submission each time. Originality Reports are generated immediately for the first three files each student submits, but will require a 24-hour processing time thereafter
.

  • Generate reports on due date (students can resubmit until due date) —This option delays the processing of Similarity Reports until the due date

How to interpret the Similarity Report?
  The color of the report icon indicates the overall similarity index of the paper, based on the amount of matching or similar text that was uncovered.  The percentage range is 0% to 100%
 The possible similarity indices are:

  • blue - no matching text


  • green 1 word to 24% matching text


  • yellow  25-49% matching text


  • orange 50-74% matching text

  • red 75-100% matching text


  • Select the box to allow students to view Similarity reports if you want them to be able to do so.

  • Select the check box to exclude or include the bibliography and quoted material within a Similarity Report.  The default for a Turnitin assignment setting is to exclude the bibliographic and quoted material.

  • Exclude small sources:  There are two options, by word count or by percentage.  This allows you greater control on sifting out smaller sources, and allowing focus to be on more problematic and suspect matches within the Similarity Report.  This setting can be overridden in individual Similarity Reports.

  • Check the Save these settings for future use if you want to save this assignments options as your default options for future assignments.


Once you have selected the appropriate settings for your Turnitin assignment, click the Submit button at the bottom.  The Turnitin assignment has been created.   You can now access the assignment inbox by clicking on the assignment name.

For each Turnitin assignment created, a column will automatically generate in the Gradebook

 EditTurnitin Assignment Settings

If you want to edit the turnitin assignment settings, click on the turnitin assignment link and select the gear in the upper right hand corner. The gear will bring you to the same page as when the assignment was originally created, however, some settings will be unable to be changed. 

Edit Assignment Start and End Dates

 Edit Start Date

If you want to edit the assignment details including due date, max grade, and category, click the three dot menu and select edit from the dropdown menu.  To delete the assignment, select delete from the dropdown menu. 


Once you have selected edit, the edit panel will open. Select "open in new window" if you want the assignment to open in a new window for students. Select "allow class conversations" if you want to allow for students to have class conversations. Select due date and time if you want to edit the due date. You can change what the assignment is graded using by using the dropdown menu to select points, percentage, complete/incomplete, or SU letter. You can change the maximum points by changing it in the box to the right of maximum points. A category can be selected by using the dropdown menu. Select "formative assessment" if the assignment is a formative assessment. Under additional tools, the assignment can be aligned with goals by selecting the align with goals link. The assignment description can be added or edited at the bottom of the panel. Then once finished with any edits, click save. 

 Edit Due Date

In your content area, you will see the newly created turnitin assignment.  It will show you the due date.  If you hover your mouse over the Date/time link, you will see when students can access this content. From the date/time link, you can edit the release conditions for when the assignment will become available and can be used to limit which students or groups can access the assignment. 

Once Date/time is clicked on a release conditions menu will open. By default, the release conditions are set to all members, but click on "specific members or groups" to release the assignment to only certiain students or groups.  You can select the options you want and change the start date.  Under when will content appear, press "show" to have the assignment shown on the content page, but students will only be able to access it once the start date is reached. Select "hide" to have the assignment be hidden until the start date and then it will become visible to students. Once your changes are entered, be sure to click Save.

Additional Resources


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