My Iona

Turnitin in Blackboard

Learn how to use Turnitin to submit assignments in Blackboard. All documents submitted to Turnitin are checked against a growing database of content and a similarity report is generated.

Students

  1. Go to the Content Area where your instructor set up the assignment.
  2. Under the title of the assignment, click on 'View/Complete'.
  3. From the Assignment Inbox page, click on 'submit'.
  4. Title your submission.
  5. Click on 'Choose from Computer'.
  6. Upload your file and the click on 'Upload'.
  7. After clicking upload, you will see the 'Processing' screen, with some additional information about the submission and assignment.
  8. When processing is complete, a formatted preview of the first page of the submission will then display. Click on 'Confirm' to confirm your submission.
  9. If you submitted your file successfully, you will see a message that reads, "Congratulations - your submission is complete! This is your digital receipt. You can print a copy of this receipt from within the Document Viewer." You will also receive an email that contains your digital receipt.

If for some reason a paper takes more than 2 minutes generate a preview (which is rare), there is an alternate method in which you can choose a couple options:

  • Cancel, and try again: You will be taken back to select a file.
  • Keep trying, I'll be back: You can leave and will be sent an email with status information.

Faculty

Turnitin should be used as one element in a broader effort to deter plagiarism; including classroom instruction in scholarly integrity and academic skills like proper research, analysis, writing and citation.

All papers submitted to Turnitin are checked in a matter of minutes against three constantly growing databases of content:
A current archive of all publicly accessible Internet content (more than 5 billion pages updated at a rate of 40 million pages per day);

  • Millions of published works, including the ProQuest library research databases and tens of thousands of electronic books;
  • Millions of student papers from around the world submitted to Turnitin for other courses - including those submitted by Iona students.

Aside from integrating with BlackBoard's Grade Center, allowing students to submit papers online, and creating the Similarity Report which is Turnitin's main function, the tool offers online grading and peer review (PeerMark) which help instructors provide better feedback and engage students in the writing process.

  1. In a Blackboard course, open the Content Area where you want students to access the assignment (i.e., Course Content, Assignments, etc.).
  2. Click on 'Assessments' from the menu underneath the title of the Content Area.
  3. Choose 'Turnitin Assignment'' from the drop down menu. The Turnitin assignment page will open.
  4. Choose 'Paper Assignment'.
  5. Click 'Next Step'
  6. You will now see a menu for creating a new assignment. Type in an Assignment title. Fill in a Start date, Due date and Post date (the date when students will be able see their GradeMarks in My Grades in Blackboard).
  7. Select 'Allow only file types that Turnitin can check for originality' or 'Allow any file type'.

    Note: Students can now submit any file type to Turnitin for grading online or distributing work for peer review if Allow any file type is selected. Submission file types may include PowerPoint presentations, spreadsheets, images, html code, etc. This option is most useful for instructors who use the GradeMark function, want students to submit assignments other than papers, and do not need to generate originality reports.

    If Allow any file type is selected, any file that is less than 20 MB and that is less than 400 pages in length will be allowed to be submitted. If the submitted file meets the requirements for generating an Originality Report an Originality Report will be created for the file. If the submitted file does not meet the requirements for generating an Originality Report an Originality Report will be not created for the file
  8. Expand the Optional settings menu to choose the options that best suit your needs.
  9. Click the 'Submit' button.
  10. Go into the Grade Center and check that there is now a column for the Turnitin assignment you just created.

Note: Remember to tell your students in which Content Area you created the assignment link. This is where they will submit their paper.

We highly recommend you utilize the choices available to you in Optional Settings.

If you would like students to submit multiple drafts without overwriting the previous drafts/submissions, you can create additional assignments using the revision assignment type. Revision assignments are duplicates of the 'parent' assignment's advanced options and standard settings, but may have new start, due, and post dates.

  1. In a Blackboard course, open the Content Area where you want students to access the assignment (i.e., Course Content, Assignments, etc.)
  2. Click on 'Assessments' from the menu underneath the title of the Content Area.
  3. Choose 'Turnitin Assignment' from the drop down menu. The Turnitin assignment page will open.
  4. Choose 'Revision Assignment' from the menu.
  5. Click on the 'Next Step' button.
  6. From the pull down menu labeled 'based on paper assignment', select the assignment this revision should be based on.
  7. Optional: Enter a point value for the revision assignment.
  8. Select the start date, due date, and post date for the assignment.
  9. Optional: Enter any special assignment instructions.
  10. Select an option from the 'Generate Originality Reports for student submissions' drop down menu.
  11. Two other options can be adjusted:

    The generate Originality Reports for student submissions
    The allow students to see Originality Reports?
  12. Click on 'Submit' to save this revision assignment.

A typical submission made to an assignment on Turnitin generates a Similarity Report. The Similarity Report is the result of comparison between the text of the submission against the search targets selected for the assignment which may include billions of pages of active and archived internet information, a repository of works previously submitted to Turnitin, and a repository of tens of thousands of periodicals, journals, & publications. Any matching or highly similar text discovered is detailed in the Similarity Report that is available in the assignment inbox.

Once a Turnitin assignment is created, a column in Blackboard's Grade Center is automatically created. As you grade student submissions in the Turnitin Feedback Studio, the grades are automatically entered in the Grade Center. However, occasionally the grades from Turnitin do not populate in the Grade Center or the 'Needs Grading' icon (yellow exclamation point) does not show up in the Grade Center after a student submits content in Turnitin. In these instances, the instructor must Sync Grades.

To manually Sync Grades from Turnitin Feedback Studio to Grade Center:

  1. Navigate to the Control Panel
  2. From the Control Panel, navigate to Course Tools
  3. Once you expand Course Tools, navigate to Turnitin Assignments
  4. Click on the Sync Grades link located to the right of the name of the assignment

Please note that for assignments with anonymous grading selected, the 'Needs Grading' icon will not appear until the Post Date for submissions.

Rubric scorecards can be used to evaluate student work based on defined criteria and scales. Grading forms can be used to provide free form feedback and scores to evaluate student work based on defined criteria. The rubric scorecards and grading forms can be created by the account administrator and shared to all instructors on an account. Instructors can also create and share rubric scorecards and grading forms, allowing other instructors to upload the rubric scorecard to their classes.