This article will explain how you can create a Turnitin Assignment and which settings you should use.
- Go to Course Tools in the navigation bar of your course
- Click on Assignments
- Click on New Assignment.
Basic Properties of the Turnitin Assignment
Create an assignment as you would normally do: How do I create an Assignment? But take the following things in mind:
- Enter 100 points at Grade Out Of
- Turnitin Feedback Studio does not accept decimal numbers. That is why you need to enter a score of 100 instead of 10. Doing so you are able to grade submission with e.g. 85 out of 100 what will be transformed to an 8.5 in the Brightspace Gradebook by the attached grade scheme. Students will just see a grade on a scale from 0-10.
- Don't forget to choose a grade item, in case you already have set up your grade book.
- Always enter a due date, otherwise the similarity check will not be done properly
To ensure the Turnitin similarity scores are accountable we advise you to always enter a Due Date. Moreover, setting a due date helps setting clear deadlines for your students. Due Dates will automatically appear in the Course Calendar.
Please note, that students are still able to upload a submission after the Due Date has passed. Of course, you will see in the submissions overview which students were late. You can use this information (e.g., # of hours late) to determine if/how you want to apply a late submission policy.
One of the perks of allowing submissions after the deadline, is that you are still able to check their work on plagiarism and assess/archive their submission. This is also less cumbersome than the steps you would need to take if you need to submit a file on behalf of a student in Turnitin.com.
Important: if you select Now as the due date this renders the Properties Assignment type and Submission type unchangeable. By clicking Now, you will set the actual deadline in motion. Make sure to communicate this deadline in advance with your students.
In case you really do not want students to submit after the deadline, please see here about Restricting Access to your Turnitin Assignment.
Availability Dates & Conditions
The availability controls when students can access the assignment and the published feedback on that assignment. Please see here about more information on the Availability and restricting access to your Turnitin Assignment.
Submission settings for the Turnitin Assignment
Go to Submission & Completion. With the settings below originality reports on submission will be automatically generated, so you can immediately see a plagiarism score and start evaluation upon submission.
- Make sure File submission is selected
- Choose your desired Files Allowed per Submission - in most situations one file is recommended.
- Select Compatible with Turnitin
- Choose your desired setting under Submissions - in most situations only one submission allowed is recommended
In case you choose all submissions are kept: Turnitin will generate a similarity report for each submission. In case you select only the most recent submission, Turnitin will regenerate a new report for the new submission.
Enable Turnitin
Open Evaluation & Feedback and click on Manage Turnitin. The pop-up screen below will appear:
- Check the box Enable Similarity Report for this folder.
- Optional: Check the Display box in case you want students to be able to see their plagiarism score as well, after you have published the feedback.
- Leave Submissions Checked on Automatically similarity checking on all submissions, as it will save quite some work.
- Click on Enable Online Grading for this folder
- Leave Transfer on Automatically sync, otherwise grades will not be transferred to the Brightspace Gradebook.
Next, click on More Options
Turnitin More Options
Scroll down until you reach Similarity Report
Want to know more about the other options? Please see Tell me more on the More Options in Turnitin
- Verify it the report generation setting is set correctly:
- Generate reports immediately (students cannot resubmit): this will generate a similarity immediately, but offers no collusion check.
- Generate reports immediately (students can resubmit until due date): you will see a similarity score directly upon submission, and after the end date Turnitin regenerates the scores, based on the collusion check. This is the most recommended setting.
- Generate reports on due date (students can resubmit until due date): do not use this setting (!), since it is currently bugged and does not generate similarity reports.
- Optional: upload the assignments to exclude it from the similarity check. See here for more information.
- Optional: Click on Save these settings for future use, so that your Turnitin More Options settings are saved for future assignments.
- Be advised to check the box and first save the other settings, before uploading a template assignment. In that way you will always have the same settings, and only have to upload a template in this screen.
- When you upload a template, do not check the box for Save these settings for future use and just click on submit.
What is collusion check?
When students submit their work, Turnitin will always compare it to internet resources or previously submitted work from other students from other assignments. Collusion check simply means, Turnitin will also check on plagiarism between the students' work in the current assignment.
Change visibility & Save
Finally, click Save and you will return to the Assignment Creation screen.
- Optional: Make sure the assignment is set to visible, otherwise your students will not be able to submit anything. You are of course able to change the visibility on a later time.
- Click Save and Close to return to your Assingments overview.