Turnitin

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.

  How does it work?
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
  How do I get started?
  • In a course, open the Content Area where you want students to access the assignment
  • create
  • Click 'Assessments'
  • Pick 'Turnitin Assignment' from the drop down menu
  • The menu for your Turnitin assignment will show up
  • Three choices will appear - Paper, PeerMark and Revision Assignment. Most often, you will chose Paper Assignment, but you should chose whichever best fits your needs.
  • Click 'Next Step'
  • 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 to login to their Turnitin accountsand see their GradeMarks).
  • Be sure to click on 'Optional settings' to expand the settings menu. Check that these options suit your needs.

    Note: We recommend that you change the first option, "Allow submission after the due date?" from 'No' to 'Yes'. The system tracks the date and time of submissions, so you will still know when/if a student turns in his/her paper late.
  • Click the 'Submit' button, and you're done
  • 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.
  How do I grade a Turnitin assignment?
  • To grade via the 'Grade Center', select Full Grade Center from the Control Panel and navigate to the appropriate assignment.
  • When a student submits a paper to Turnitin, a green exclaimation point exptwill appear in that student's row.
  • Click on the Double Arrowsdblarrow to the right of the exclaimation point exptto get the grade menu.
    grade
  • Click 'View Grade Details' OR a specific 'Attempt' to see the student submission.
  • To see the 'User's Paper' in Turnitin or to see his/her 'Originality Report', click the globe next to that option. You can grade and markup assignment within Turnitin. Or you can enter the student's grade, and any comments abou the paper in the BlackBoard system (see below). Be sure to click 'Submit' when you're done.
    report
 What else does Turnitin do?
Aside from integrating with BlackBoard's Grade Center, allowing students to submit papers online, and creating the Originality Report which is Turnitin's main function, the tool offers online grading (GradeMark) and peer review (PeerMark) which help instructors provide better feedback and engage students in the writing process.
 Who can see the students' papers?
"Only the course instructor can see a student's paper. If a match is found between the student's paper and another student's paper, the instructor can request the matching paper from the other student's instructor. The instructors decide whether to share the matching paper depending on the circumstances.

The only exception to this rule is in the case of peer review assignments. Students using PeerMark will be allowed to view the text of the papers they are assigned to review from within the context of the peer review assignment, though the instructor can choose to distribute the papers anonymously." Read more »

More tutorials are available on Turnitin's instructor training site »

Note: All students and teachers will be prompted to create a Turnitin account (separate from any of your Iona accounts and logins) the first time you/they use Turnitin. This login allows you to use Turnitin without going through BlackBoard.