Turnitin is a powerful tool designed to aid instructors in assessing the authenticity of students' work by cross-referencing electronic documents with online sources and its extensive database. The software generates an Originality Report, providing a rating for submitted assignments and highlighting any instances of text found elsewhere. Faculty members can seamlessly integrate Turnitin assignments into their courses or activate it for existing assignments to ensure academic integrity and evaluate the originality of students' submissions. Moreover, Turnitin offers an array of robust features, enabling educators to efficiently grade assignments and deliver valuable feedback to their students, fostering a more effective learning experience.
To incorporate Turnitin into the CLE, instructors follow a straightforward two-step process. Firstly, they add the Turnitin assignment to their CLE course page and adjust the necessary settings directly within the CLE interface. Secondly, instructors proceed to open the assignment and fine-tune additional configurations using Turnitin's dedicated tools. For comprehensive guidance on utilizing Turnitin effectively, educators can access a training video or review a comprehensive article, providing them with essential insights to maximize the tool's potential in their courses.
Review this article to learn how to use Turnitin in your course.
Adding a Turnitin assignment in the CLE is a two-step process. First, you add the Turnitin assignment to your CLE course page and edit the settings from within the CLE. Second, you open the assignment and edit additional settings within Turnitin.
To add a Turnitin assignment to your CLE course:
- Log in to the CLE (ucsf.edu).
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In the course, turn Edit mode on in the top-right corner. This will enable you to edit and add activities to the course.
- In the Section where you will add a Turnitin assignment, click +Add an activity or resource (at the lower-right of the section). The Activity chooser will open.
- In the Activity chooser, select Turnitin assignment 2. A description of the Turnitin assignment activity appears at right with links to help pages. Click Add to display the Adding a new Turnitin assignment page.
- To configure basic settings for the Turnitin assignment, see Configure Settings in the second tab of this article.
- At the bottom of the page, click Save and return to course, or Save and display to open the assignment in Turnitin.
For more information, check the Turnitin Instructor Guide.
When you add a Turnitin assignment activity to a CLE course, you are required to set the assignment's name and the Submission Type. The remaining settings are optional. This section describes each setting.
General
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Turnitin Assignment Name (required)
This is used as the assignment link on your course page. -
Summary
Enter a summary of the assignment and instructions. The Summary will be visible to students when they click the assignment link, or you can select Display description on course page to display the Summary on your course page (best if the Summary is very concise). -
Submission Type (required)
- Any Submission Type lets students choose to submit either a file or text entry.
- File Upload requires that students upload a file containing their essay. Acceptable formats include PDF, Microsoft Word, and others.
- Text Submission provides students with a text box where they can type or paste in the text of their essay. This may work better for shorter submissions rather than essays that have multiple pages and have specifically formatted reference lists.
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Number of Parts
Specify whether students can submit multiple parts of their assignment, for example, if they are uploading separate sections of an essay independently. This can be used for submitting multiple drafts of an essay. -
Maximum File Size
Set the maximum size of the file that students can upload. - Allow submission of any file type?
This setting will allow any file type to be submitted. With this option set to Yes, submissions will be checked for originality where possible, submissions will be available for download and GradeMark feedback tools will be available where possible. -
Display Originality Reports to Students
The default is No. We recommend setting it as Yes, which can be useful in resolving disputes on originality of the student's work, or for draft submission to allow students to improve citations. -
Grade Display
This option sets the display mode for the grade options. Grades can be displayed as a fraction or percentage. -
Auto Refresh Grades / Scores
Specify whether grades and originality reports will be refreshed automatically. The default is Yes, automatically refresh originality scores and grades. -
Set these values as assignment defaults
Select this option to make the current settings default for future Turnitin assignments.
Assignment Parts
By default, Turnitin assignments are composed of one part. If the assignment has more than one part (set above: General-Number of Parts), each part will have its own form.
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Name (required)
A name for the assignment part. The default is Part 1. -
Start Date
Modify the defaults to allow students to start submitting their work at a different time. -
Due Date
Modify the defaults to specify the actual due date you want for your assignment.
Note: Students may still be able to submit their work after the Due Date if you enable Allow Submissions after the Due Date (under Originality Report Options, below). -
Post Date
This is the date at which your grades and feedback are made available for students to view. Modify the defaults if you want your grades to be posted at or after your actual due date.
Note: To have Turnitin and the CLE sync grades correctly you must have grades entered into GradeMark BEFORE the Post Date. Any grades entered AFTER the post date must be synced individually. Instructors should set a reasonable time in which to grade student work for their Post Date. -
Max Grades
Enter the maximum points that can be earned in this part. The default is 100.
Note: In multiple-part assignments, if all parts have the same Max grades value, the parts will be weighted equally in calculating the grade for the entire assignment that is recorded in the gradebook.
Similarity Report Options
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Allow Submissions after the Due Date
Set this to Yes if you want to allow students to submit beyond the due date. -
Report Generation Speed
There are three options for this assignment setting:- Generate reports immediately (resubmissions are not allowed) generates an Originality Report as soon as a student makes a submission. With this option selected your students will not be able to resubmit the assignment.
- Generate reports immediately (resubmissions are allowed until due date) allows students to continuously resubmit the assignment until the due date. It may take up to 24 hours to process Originality Reports after 3 resubmissions.
- Generate reports on due date (resubmissions are allowed until due date) only generates an Originality Report on the assignment's due date.
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Check against stored student papers
Select Yes to check submissions' originality against those stored in the Turnitin repository. Originally reports will provide details for matches within your current and previous classes, and general information for other matches found. -
Check against internet
Select Yes to check submissions' originality against internet content. -
Check against journals, periodicals, and publications
Select Yes to check submissions' originality against content from academic publications. -
Check against Institutional Repository
Select Yes to check against UCSF's Institutional Repository, which contains student work submitted at UCSF. This is separate from Turnitin's databases. -
Exclude Bibliography
Select Yes if you would like to exclude the bibliography section of student submissions from originality checking. -
Exclude Quoted Material
Select Yes if you would like Turnitin to skip over any quotes used in the student submission, as these are more likely to match works submitted elsewhere. -
Exclude Small Matches
Enter the minimum number of words (or the percentage of the essay) that need to match in order to flag a section of the student submission. This can cut down on commonly used phrases being flagged for similarity.
If you have added an assignment to the CLE you can open the assignment and enable additional Turnitin settings within an assignment activity.
Add an Assignment in a CLE course
- Go to the course home page and turn Edit mode on.
- Select the assignment, on which you want to enable Turnitin.
- In the Assignment navigation bar, click the Settings tab. This will open the assignment configuration page. The configuration of General, Availability, and Submission Types (set up when you were adding the assignment to CLE) will appear.
- Scroll down and click Turnitin plagiarism plugin settings (see image below). This will open up the following settings for you to configure:
- Enable Turnitin
- Select Yes to incorporate Turnitin to this assignment.
- Display Similarity Reports to Students
- The default is No. We recommend setting it as Yes, which can be useful in resolving disputes on the originality of the student's work, or for draft submission to allow students to improve citations.
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Allow submission of any file type?
- This setting will allow any file type to be submitted. With this option set to Yes, submissions will be checked for originality where possible, submissions will be available for download and GradeMark feedback tools will be available where possible.
- Check against stored student papers
- Select Yes to check submissions' originality against those stored in the Turnitin repository. Originally reports will provide details for matches within your current and previous classes, and general information for other matches found.
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Check against internet
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Select Yes to check submissions' originality against internet content.
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Check against journals, periodicals, and publications
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Select Yes to check submissions' originality against content from academic publications.
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- Check against Institutional Repository
- Select Yes to check against UCSF's Institutional Repository, which contains student work submitted at UCSF. This is separate from Turnitin's databases.
- Exclude Bibliography
- Select Yes if you would like to exclude the bibliography section of student submissions from originality checking.
- Exclude Quoted Material
- Select Yes if you would like Turnitin to skip over any quotes used in the student submission, as these are more likely to match works submitted elsewhere.
- Exclude Small Matches
- Enter the minimum number of words (or the percentage of the essay) that need to match in order to flag a section of the student submission. This can cut down on commonly used phrases being flagged for similarity.
- At the bottom of the page, click Save and return to course, or Save and display to open the assignment in Turnitin.