Turnitin instructions for SNM staff
How to set up a Turnitin submission point in studentcentral
Overview
• In your study area, set up a Turnitin Assignment link so that students can submit their work
• You can specify a Due Date after which students can no longer submit
• You can view originality reports through the Control Panel > Course Tools area
• You can download and mark the assignments from Turnitin
Guidelines
Make sure your students understand …
• what they have to do
• which referencing style they are expected to use and how to use it
• that only the following file types are acceptable: MS Word, WordPerfect, PDF, HTML, RTF, and plain text
• if the first attempt to submit fails, students can try again
• students must submit one, single, file only – cover sheets, bibliographies, appendices etc cannot be submitted separately; all parts of the assignment must be assembled into one document
• the file size limit is 20MB
Test Run
1. Click the Assignment link in the menu
2. Hover over the Create Assessment button and choose Turnitin Assignment
3. WAIT.....the system is now going to the Turnitin server which could take a while
4. You will get a screen like this
5. Leave the default setting as Paper Assignment and click Next Step
6. Any box with a red star means you have to enter some information – in this instance, assignment title, start, due and post dates
7. Give the assignment an appropriate title – the title should be brief but meaningful, eg Test Run
8. You could also give the assignment a points value – score or grade for the assignment - although this is not compulsory and not necessary for this test run
9. Complete the Start Date – i.e. the date from which you wish the students to be able to start submitting
10. Complete the Due Date – i.e. the date on which the link becomes unavailable
11. Complete the Post Date – this refers to availability of feedback and marks; although marks and feedback are not relevant for the test run, the post date must be a date after the due date
12. Click + Optional settings
13. Enter special instructions – text typed in this box can be seen by students before they submit their assignment
14. Generate Originality Reports for submissions? – you would probably want to leave this as the default yes. The other option is ‘no’ and would most likely be used if you were using Turnitin purely for e-submission and not marking or similarity checking
15. Generate Originality Reports for student submissions? – there are three options :
· immediately (first report is final) - as soon as the assignment is submitted work will be checked for possible plagiarism; no resubmission possible
· immediately (can overwrite reports until due date) - students can resubmit as often as they like up until the due date – this is the option you will want to choose if you wish students to be able to redraft their work in response to the content of Originality Reports. This process has been proven to help students gain a better understanding of plagiarism and how to avoid it. It is not simply a get-out mechanism for cheats – students have to carry out a substantial rewrite of their text in order to see any significant reduction in their score
· on due date - reports are generated on the assignment's due date i.e. students can submit drafts of their paper up until the due date, but it is only the final paper which will be checked for similarity
16. Unless you want students to submit once only, we would suggest you use the second or third options
17. Exclude bibliographic materials from Similarity Index for all papers in this assignment? – choose ‘no’
18. Exclude quoted materials from Similarity Index for all papers in this assignment? – choose ‘no’
19. Exclude small matches? – choose ‘no’
20. Allow students to see Originality Reports? – This option is left for you to make a choice. If you choose ‘no’ then the students do not get to see their Originality Report at all – just any grades or feedback that you later give them. If you choose ‘yes’ then the students will see their Originality Report according to the settings you made in point 16 above. If you do choose ‘yes’ it is probably worth explaining to students what the Report means. For example :
· Explain to students that there is no score to aim for. The report identifies the percentage of the assignment which matches content online (more specifically, content in Turnitin’s database); a ‘high’ score may not necessarily indicate plagiarism
· Substantial quotes used in a document may increase its similarity score, even if these quotes are properly referenced. Explain that in some cases it may be judged that a piece of writing with a high similarity score and with many correctly referenced quotes might be a poor example of academic writing, but is not plagiarism
21. Allow submissions after the due date? – choose ‘no’
22. Reveal grades to students only on post date? – choose ‘yes’
23. Enable anonymous marking? – choose ‘no’
24. Submit papers to: - it’s very important choose the ‘no repository’ option to ensure that these submissions are not included in the main Turnitin database
25. Under Search options make sure all the boxes are ticked
26. Click submit
27. Go back to Course Management > Course Tools and choose Turnitin Assignments
28. Click the appropriate link
29. Click Roster Sync to ensure all students on your module are in the system
30. You should then get a list of all the students in that module
Main Assignment
1. Click the Assignment link in the menu
2. Hover over the Create Assessment button and choose Turnitin Assignment
3. WAIT.....the system is now going to the Turnitin server which could take a while
4. You will get a screen like this
5. Leave the default setting as Paper Assignment and click Next Step
6. Any box with a red star means you have to enter some information – in this instance, assignment title, start, due and post dates
7. So give the assignment an appropriate title – the title should be brief but meaningful, eg January Assignment
8. You could also give the assignment a points value – score or grade for the assignment - although this is not compulsory
9. Complete the Start Date – i.e. the date you wish the students to be able to start submitting from
10. Complete the Due Date – i.e. the date the assignment is due
11. Complete the Post Date – i.e. 20 days after the due date, the date the students can start to view your feedback and un-ratified marks
12. Click + Optional settings; these are the same as those for the Test Run except for step 24
13. Enter special instructions – text typed in this box can be seen by students before they submit their assignment
14. Generate Originality Reports for submissions? – you would probably want to leave this as the default yes. The other option is ‘no’ and would most likely be used if you were using Turnitin purely for e-submission and not marking or similarity checking
15. Generate Originality Reports for student submissions? – there are three options :
· immediately (first report is final) - as soon as the assignment is submitted work will be checked for possible plagiarism; no resubmission possible
· immediately (can overwrite reports until due date) - students can resubmit as often as they like up until the due date – this is the option you will want to choose if you wish students to be able to redraft their work in response to the content of Originality Reports. This process has been proven to help students gain a better understanding of plagiarism and how to avoid it. It is not simply a get-out mechanism for cheats – students have to carry out a substantial rewrite of their text in order to see any significant reduction in their score
· on due date - reports are generated on the assignment's due date i.e. students can submit drafts of their paper up until the due date, but it is only the final paper which will be checked for similarity
16. Unless you want students to submit once only, we would suggest you use the second or third options
17. Exclude bibliographic materials from Similarity Index for all papers in this assignment? – choose ‘no’
18. Exclude quoted materials from Similarity Index for all papers in this assignment? – choose ‘no’
19. Exclude small matches? – choose ‘no’
20. Allow students to see Originality Reports? – This option is left for you to make a choice. If you choose ‘no’ then the students do not get to see their Originality Report at all – just any grades or feedback that you later give them. If you choose ‘yes’ then the students will see their Originality Report according to the settings you made in point 16 above. If you do choose ‘yes’ it is probably worth explaining to students what the Report means. For example :
· Explain to students that there is no score to aim for. The report identifies the percentage of the assignment which matches content online (more specifically, content in Turnitin’s database); a ‘high’ score may not necessarily indicate plagiarism
· Substantial quotes used in a document may increase its similarity score, even if these quotes are properly referenced. Explain that in some cases it may be judged that a piece of writing with a high similarity score and with many correctly referenced quotes might be a poor example of academic writing, but is not plagiarism
21. Allow submissions after the due date? – choose ‘no’
22. Reveal grades to students only on post date? – choose ‘yes’
23. Enable anonymous marking? – choose ‘no’
24. Submit papers to: - it is important to choose the ‘standard paper repository’ option to ensure that this submission is included in the main Turnitin database
25. Under Search options make sure all the boxes are ticked
26. Click submit
27. Go back to Control Panel > Course Tools and choose Turnitin Assignments
28. Click the appropriate link
29. Click Roster Sync to ensure all students on your module are in the system
30. You should then get a list of all the students in that module
Extensions and Re-sits
Set up the link as for the Main Assignment but with the appropriate dates and identical ‘Optional settings’:
1. Complete the Start Date – i.e. the this will be the same date and time as the original due date (of the main assignment)
2. Complete the Due Date – i.e. 14 days after the Start Date
3. Complete the Post Date – i.e. 20 days after the due date, the date the students can start to view your feedback and un-ratified marks
How to download and grade files submitted to a Turnitin submission point in studentcentral
1. From the Control Panel > Course Tools choose Turnitin Assignments
2. This will bring up a list of the assignment points you have created
3. Click the appropriate link
4. WAIT....the system needs to go to the Turnitin server which can take a while
5. You will see a list of all your students, their submitted work and their Originality Reports plus details of any who have not submitted
Downloading student assignments for printing or reading
1. You can download a single file, or multiple files; files are downloaded into a zip (compressed) file
2. To download all files, tick the box to the left of ‘Author’
3. To download a single file(s), tick the appropriate boxes on the left hand side and click download on the right
4. In either case, next choose Original File
5. Click OK on any window that appears next (if any)
6. Choose Originally submitted format(s)
7. Follow the onscreen instructions to download a zip file to your computer
8. Locate the zip file on your computer and unzip the files. You can now print or read in the normal way.
Marking papers and adding student feedback
You will already have completed the marker feedback template in Word – you must copy and paste this into the General Comments section on Turnitin.
1. From the Control Panel > Course Tools choose Turnitin Assignments
2. Click the pencil icon in the Grade column for the appropriate student
3. The student’s paper opens in a new window – the Document Viewer
4. Enter the mark for the paper into the Grade box at the top right of the screen; the mark is saved automatically but can be overwritten at any stage
5. Click the General Comments button, near the bottom right of the screen
6. Go to your marker feedback template
7. Hold down the CTRL key while you type the letter A to select the whole document
8. Hold down the CTRL key while you type the letter C to copy everything
9. Go back to Turnitin
10. Click into the General Comments box
11. Hold down the CTRL key while you type the letter V to paste in your feedback
12. Click Save
13. When you are ready, close the window
14. Repeat the above steps for each paper you are marking
11 Dr Les Ellam and Joyce Webber, April 2011. Reviewed by jw Dec 2011