All modules and courses created prior to 2022/23 have the Blackboard ‘Original’ look-and-feel and used an older version of Turnitin called the “Blackboard Basic Building Block”. This method of setting up Turnitin Assignments will no longer be possible from late October 2022.
If you need to set up Turnitin Assignments (submission points) in Blackboard ‘Original’ modules and courses for trail and progress students or where the module or course has a longer period of study, the new Turnitin LTI version will be available to use on the Blackboard ‘Original’ modules and courses and can be set up in the following way:
Within your Original Blackboard site navigate to the Assessments area and relevant sub-folder
Select Build Content and from the drop-down menu select Turnitin [2022-23 onwards]
Marking Grids / Rubrics need to be imported into your Turnitin Rubric Manager before they can be attached to a Turnitin Assignment. Once attached these cannot later be deleted from your Rubric Manager library, unless they are first ‘detached’ from the Turnitin Assignment.
NOTE: If you or another marker has already marked any submission against the existing attached Rubric or linked feedback/bubble comments to any criteria against the existing Rubric this will be lost when you detach it from the Turnitin Assignment.
However, if the Rubric has not been attached to an Assignment it can be deleted from your Turnitin Rubric Manager library.
Navigate to any Turnitin Assignment inbox
Select the ‘cog’ settings icon from the top right-hand corner
Select Optional Settings
Scroll down the page a little way and select Launch Rubric Manager
If this is not visible then select the check box next to Attach a rubric
This opens the Rubric Manager
Select the menu icon from the top left-hand corner to see the lists of marking grids / rubric already existing in your library
Click on the name of the rubric you wish to delete so that it is displayed in the rubric manager window
Select the menu icon again, if the delete this rubric option is greyed out (as in the above image) then you are unable to delete it because it is attached to a Turnitin Assignment
If the delete this rubric option is not greyed out (as in the image below) then select this
A further window will open, select Yes if you are sure that you wish to delete this rubric from your Rubric Manager
Closing the Rubric Manager window returns you back to the Turnitin Assignment settings, scroll to the bottom of this screen and select Submit
Once a Rubric or Grading Form has been uploaded into your Turnitin Rubric Manager it can be attached to any Turnitin Assignment on any Blackboard site you are an Instructor on.
To download and archive papers from a Turnitin Assignment (submission point), access the Turnitin Assignment point by clicking on the name of the assessment e.g. FINAL Assessment 1 – Name of Assessment, to open the Assignment Inbox.
If you wish to only download specific submissions, select the check box next to the Author(s) name, if you wish to download all submissions, select the check box next to the title Author column heading.
Next select Download All to view the drop-down menu:
Downloading Original Submissions
Select Original Files from the drop-down menu.
A ZIP file will download to your downloads area of your PC.
Downloading Submissions with e-Feedback
Select GradeMark PDF’s from the drop-down menu.
A message will appear informing you that this might take a little while and that a notifications message will appear when ready:
After a little while return to the Assignment Inbox
A small red dot should appear next to the Notifications icon:
Select the Notification icon to view the message.
Click on the message to expand it:
Select the .ZIP link within the message
The ZIP file will download to your downloads area of your PC.
Check the Downloaded Submissions
Note: please ensure you check a few of the files once downloaded to ensure that the operation has completed successfully.
This section describes the types of feedback that can be added using Turnitin and contains advice for markers as a set of important considerations before adding feedback to students’ work using Turnitin. These include selecting the types of Turnitin feedback to use and managing the release of feedback to students in the context of the standardised University Turnitin set-up, the need to download and archive feedback for retention purposes and some limitations and risks involved in using Turnitin for feedback.
A number of feedback options are available in Turnitin depending on the needs of the assessment. Below are a list of links to the different types of feedback and how to add them to a paper that you have opened for marking.
* Note: voice comments are limited to 3 minutes and cannot be downloaded/archived. Please speak to your School’s Digital Academic Developer before planning to use this feature.
Rubrics and Grading Forms
Turnitin also supports Rubrics (scorecards) for all types of assessment, as well as Grading Forms for types where students might not be making an actual submission per se (e.g. to assess a form of performance). See the Rubrics and Grading Forms page and associated sections for more information.
Under the standardised University Turnitin set-up, students will see their Feedback at different times and in different ways depending on whether they submitted on time or late:
Turnitin Assignment (submission point)
How and When Students See Their Feedback
Final (on time)
Students access feedback directly through Turnitin on the Post date
Final (after deadline)
Students access feedback directly through Turnitin on the (After Deadline) Post date
Table showing when students can expect to see their feedback depending on the type of Assignment used
Feedback for Late Submissions
The policy has been revised to improve efficiency of work processes. The agreed ‘best fit’ date (5 weeks minus 1 day) is set so that feedback will be released automatically to students on the Post Date. Please be advised if moderation is required after the Post Date has passed, feedback will need to be conducted outside of Turnitin.
Accessible Feedback
Feedback Studio has been designed to be highly accessible across a range of devices and by users with a range of needs. Where students may find accessing their feedback difficult, a PDF copy can be downloaded and e-mailed to them (as per the Special Arrangements for Feedback for Late Submissions section above).
Choice of Presentation of Feedback
Choice of presentation of feedback in Turnitin may help to improve your learners’ understanding of assessment criteria, their motivation to engage with your feedback and their ability to do so.
Currently, Turnitin Voice Comments cannot be downloaded and archived for retention purposes. However, there are ways of linking audio, as well as screen-recorded, feedback to Turnitin feedback in a way which can be retained. Contact your School’s Digital Academic Developer for advice.
Ensuring Feedback is Downloaded and Archived
Where you need to retain feedback on work submitted to Turnitin, or a list of grades for a particular assessment, you will need download archive the contents of your Turnitin Assignment. You must do this before:
the Turnitin Assignment is deleted,
the Blackboard site is deleted
you Refresh Inbox Data (update the list of students)
Failure to download and archive beforehand may result in lost feedback. See the separate Downloading and Archiving from Turnitin section for advice and instructions.
Risk of Losing Feedback added before the Turnitin Due Date
Under the standardised University Turnitin set-up, after a student has submitted to a Final (on time) Turnitin Assignment they can update their submission with a new file any time up until the submission deadline. This is useful in the case of accidental submissions of the wrong file (although they can only see their Similarity Report once, after the deadline). If you add feedback to students’ work before the submission deadline for Final (on time) submission points, you will see a prompt from your browser stating:
An embedded page at www.turnitinuk.com says: This is a draft submission. Any and all marks will be deleted when or if the paper is resubmitted. Would you like to continue?
This does not mean the student has submitted a draft to self-check their work – there are separate submission points for this. It is a warning that, because you are adding feedback before the submission deadline, your feedback will be lost if the student updates their submission.
Note: this is not the case for Final (after deadline) submission points. Students can make only a single submission to these.
Ensure you save paragraphs of summary text comments before closing Turnitin
After typing paragraphs of summary feedback into the Text Comments side panel, in order to save this you must click out of the text box by clicking on another area of the screen such as the white space next to the formatting options. If you close Turnitin before clicking outside of this Text Comments area, your feedback will not be saved. If you accidentally delete or overwrite feedback in this Text Comments area, you may be able to recover it by immediately Undo-ing. Clicking the right mouse button or the CTRL+Z keys will work on many (but not all) web browsers.
As Turnitin has a security time-out feature that locks open papers that have not been interacted with after approximately 10 minutes, we recommend that markers either save regularly by clicking outside of the Text Comments are or draft their feedback in a word-processor first and then copy and paste this in.
Limitations in Second Marking and Moderation
Turnitin currently has no built-in facility for recording second marker comments. Second markers can comment as additions to the first marker’s feedback but changes made to the first marker’s feedback are not tracked. Turnitin only shows the latest version. There is currently no provision blind second marking. The second marker will always see the first marker’s feedback. If your external examiner has instructor access to Module-level Blackboard sites containing Turnitin Assignments, submitted work and feedback will be visible by them. However, the following limitations apply:
you cannot restrict external examiners’ view to only a sample of work in Turnitin, they will be able to see all submitted work and feedback
you cannot set Turnitin as ‘read only’ for external examiners, they will have the ability to edit or even delete submitted work and feedback
An alternative is to download a sample of submitted work and feedback as PDF for external examiners. Contact your School’s Digital Academic Developer for advice.
Limitations with Group Work
Turnitin has no built-in support for group work. You can only add feedback to an individual student’s submitted work. The only way to manage group work in Turnitin is to ask for a nominated member of the group to submit work on behalf of the group or ask all members of the group to submit a copy of the same work and write a duplicate set of feedback for each member. A single student’s feedback cannot be shared with several students online, in an interactive way. You would have to download a PDF copy of the feedback and distribute amongst the group outside of Turnitin. Also, a single grade would be entered by Turnitin into the Module-level Blackboard site Gradebook. You would have to manually duplicate the grade for other group members. You cannot copy a whole set of Turnitin feedback between students. You would have to copy and paste individual comments from one student’s feedback to another’s.
Risk of using the Turnitin iPad App in Marking Teams
The Turnitin iPad app enables offline marking and feedback (see separate guide). However, due to the way it synchronises between the online Turnitin Assignment online and your iPad, there is a risk of feedback being lost when marking in teams. Contact your School’s Digital Academic Developer for advice.
This is advice for markers on using Turnitin to prevent and help detect plagiarism in line with the University policy. It describes how similarity checking in Turnitin works, including its limitations and University requirements for the use of Turnitin. It also contains advice on interpreting Similarity Reports and managing requests to view papers from other Institutions.
