Assessment | TEL Knowledge Base for Staff

Setting up a Turnitin Assignment in Blackboard Ultra

When setting up a Turnitin Assignment, it is important to ascertain what type of assessment has been set for the module for you to then be able to select the correct set-up. Please read Before you set-up a Turnitin Assignment for guidance.

In addition, although Turnitin can accept a variety of file formats, submissions must meet a set of requirements for Turnitin to be able to return a Similarity report.

How to set-up a Turnitin Assignment in Blackboard Ultra

Please note if you require to set-up a Turnitin Assignment in Blackboard Original you will need to use the newer standard of integration called LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability).

ATLAS Providing Extensions for all Students Assignments

This means that the link between what the students do and what the tutor can view for assessment is extended for all students.

Select the Management tab and choose assignments:

Screenshot of PebblePad's ATLAS, highlighting the Management Tab and Assignments Tab.

Select the ‘work cannot be submitted after‘ to change the date of submission. You will also need to change the ‘work already submitted can be modified until‘ date to match the deadline date.

Screenshot from PebblePad's ATLAS Assignments window showing the fields required to be completed to add extensions.

If you have set individual extensions before changing the overall submission date these individual extensions will be affected by the change of overall submission date.

It is advisable to contact your Digital Academic Developer to ensure you are aware of the implications of any changes you make to deadlines on ATLAS.

ATLAS Providing Individual Extensions for Students

It is possible to provide individual students with extensions for after the ‘standard’ deadline. This re-opens the link between the student’s work and the version viewed in ATLAS up to the revised deadline.

Providing individual extensions in PebblePad (links to PebblePad’s own website).

It is possible to use extensions for re-assessment but there are other options as well. Please talk to your Digital Academic Developer for further advice.

Fragmented Matches

Why is it I sometimes see fragmented matches pitted through some student’s work in Turnitin?

Turnitin will highlight these small ‘fragmented’ words when it has found similarity to a larger portion of text elsewhere within the student’s work from the same source, and the total of these result in an overall % which is deemed ‘significant’ enough by Turnitin to show.

Please be aware that Turnitin is best at matching larger, more verbatim sections of unoriginal text, it is not a paraphrasing detector. It would not indicate where a student may have paraphrased a series of small sections from multiple sources, then woven these together and not attributed them.

If you believe you may have seen a similar, although not verbatim, sentence / paragraph / phrase in a source which has not been attributed by the student, it may be that there is not an overall match to that source with the student’s work for Turnitin to highlight it. Using an Internet Search engine, such as Google, may help as these search on keywords.

Feedback, Marks and Rubrics

Before adding any feedback or marks to a submission please ensure you check that the Grade Centre column for this assignment is hidden from students and does not auto-aggregate to the Total column which could potentially cause early visibility of grades to students.

Blackboard Assignments

Downloading Feedback and Mark history

Blackboard Assignments

Once the students’ submissions have been downloaded, the feedback and grades will also need downloading and archiving.

From the Control Panel
Select Grade Centre
Select Full Grade Centre
Select the drop-down arrow next to Reports
Select View Mark History

screen image showing the drop down menu from the reports option to view mark history

The Mark History window will open displaying the Assignment name(s), user names, the grades or if an attempt was cleared and the feedback in the comments column:

screen image showing a Blackboard Grade Centre report Mark History window

Note: This will not show any extra files the tutor may have uploaded as an attachment providing additional feedback to a student. It is the responsibility of the tutor to download and save any such documents they may have attached to a student’s feedback.

From the Mark History window select Download

From the Options window that displays, for ease select:

screen image showing the options available to download the mark history for a Blackboard Assignment

Delimited Type = Comma
Include comments = Yes
Select Submit

The following window will appear:

Select Download and then select OK to return to the Mark History window.

Once the file is downloaded it can be opened as an Excel spreadsheet. Check that all entries have downloaded correctly and then save this to the required location.

How to Download Submissions

Blackboard Assignments

From within the Blackboard course site ensure EDIT mode is on:

From the Control Panel
Select Grade Centre
Select Full Grade Centre
Select the drop-down arrow next to the Assignment Title
Select Assignment File Download

screen image showing the drop-down menu to select file download option in grade centre for a Blackboard Assignment

The Download Assignment window will open:

screen image showing the download assignment window in Blackboard Assignments

Select the students whose assignments you want to download (you can select all students by checking the box next to Name).
Select if you want to download only each students’ Last attempt or All attempts
Click Submit.

All of the files submitted for that assignment will be packaged in a .zip file and the following message will appear:

screen image of the zip package message appearing when blackboard assignments download option has been selected

Right-click on the Download assignments nowlink
Select Save link as…

screen image showing the save as option from the drop down menu when right clicking on the download assignments hyperlink

Save the file to the required location.

Open the downloaded .zip file to ensure the contents contain all the submitted scripts.

Why you should Download and Archive Submissions

Blackboard Assignments

If a Blackboard Assignment is deleted you will no longer be able to see either students’ work submitted, any e-feedback you’ve written or marks entered. It is therefore important to undertake the manual archiving of student work to comply with the University Document Retention schedule.

You may also want to download work or other information because:

work is only submitted electronically and you are required to retain copies for audit
you want to show a selection of work and/or feedback to external examiners

Please ensure that you

advise students before you delete a Blackboard Assignment, or recycle the list of users in your Blackboard site, and advise them to download their full scripts and/or e-feedback.
are aware of the programme’s procedure and location for archiving.

Contact your Digital Academic Developer for further guidance on how to share work with external examiners.

How Students access their Mark and Feedback

Blackboard Assignment

There are a number of ways students can access their marks and feedback, but the easiest way is for them to return to where they submitted their work.

Navigating to the content area that contains the Blackboard Assignment and clicking on the Assignment name will open the Review Submission History window:

screen image showing the review submission history window in a Blackboard Assignment displaying feedback given by the tutor

The Mark and any Feedback, including the rubric will be displayed to the student in the right side panel.

Releasing Feedback and Marks

Blackboard Assignment

Once all the Assignments have been marked and you are ready to release all the marks and feedback to your learners, return to the Grade Centre of that Blackboard module.

Select the drop-down arrow next to the Assignment Title and select Hide from Students (on/off) to make this available to students.

screen image of the drop-down menu to select hide from students on or off

The will be removed and will indicate that the feedback and marks can now be viewed by students.