What is Turnitin?
Turnitin allows academics to create a submission inbox page for students to submit work for grading.
It is commonly used as an originality-checking service to help identify potential plagiarism by checking submissions against a wide range of databases including the web, and papers submitted to UNSW, as well as other institutions.
It is important to let students know that Turnitin is being used and why.
Create a Turnitin Assignment
Academics can create Turnitin Assignments as an activity through the "Add an activity or resource" button and selecting "Turnitin Assignment 2".
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Turnitin Assignment Settings
Turnitin provides many settings to specify how it will behave. It is important to understand the Turnitin Assignment settings as different settings can greatly change how Turnitin behaves. Turnitin can only be marked with whole numbers.
Settings can be updated after the creation of the assignment but it is recommended not to make large changes after submissions have been made.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Show Similarity Report to Students
Depending on the course and assessment task, academics may want similarity reports to be visible to students upon submission.
If a student sees they have a high similarity score, this may prompt them to look back over their assignment and resubmit to obtain a lower similarity percentage. It is important to let students know if they can see the similarity score and how to interpret it.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Detect AI Writing
On April 5th, 2023, Turnitin released an AI writing detection tool. It appears as an additional box within a submission’s Similarity report. The box will give a percentage of the paper that has been identified as possibly AI-generated. Clicking on the box will take you to a full report that will highlight the passages it has designated as possibly AI-generated.
The new AI detection tool is available for Turnitin Feedback Studio (Moodle & Inspera) and Similarity Check (Inspera Essay & Upload question types) integrations.
For more information regarding UNSW's stance on Generative AI in Teaching and Assessment, please visit AI in Teaching and Learning.
Additional useful links:
Interpret the Similarity Report
The Similarity and AI Writing reports only provide an indication of passages which have potential similarity or AI Writing issues. These reports provide additional information for academics to use but it can be important to view the details within the report and exercise academic judgement.
Manage Turnitin
Turnitin offers many options to manage and display different information to students.
Submit Turnitin Assignment on behalf of Student
In emergencies, academics can submit papers on behalf of students.
This is commonly used as a last resort when a technical error occurs on the student's end that prevents them from submitting. In cases like these, students can email their submission files to the lecturer in order for them to be submitted on their behalf.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Allow Turnitin Assignment Resubmission
Resubmission can be enabled in a Turnitin Assignment by changing the "Report Generation Speed" section in the 'Similarity Report Options' section of the activity settings.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Filter Submissions by Groups
Turnitin does not have built-in functionality for allocating submissions to different tutors for marking, however, groups can be used to filter students during the marking process.
To begin, start by creating a group of students who will require their work marked by tutors.
Click 'Get Started' to view the step-by-step guide
Explore more
The Similarity Report - Compare text of student submissions against 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, and publications.
Commenting Tools - Add comments to student submissions to outline key points.
QuickMarks - QuickMarks allow teaching staff to create a library of feedback that might be applicable, on multiple occasions, to multiple students, across multiple classes and assignments.
Rubrics and Grading forms - Rubrics help to evaluate student work, based on defined criteria and scales. Grading forms can be used to outline the rubric used to allocate points to a student's submission based on different criterias.
Enabling Anonymous Marking - Anonymous marking (or Moodle's blind marking) allows teaching staff to grade student's work without seeing any identifiable student information.
PeerMark - Instructors can create and manage PeerMark assignments that allow students to read, review, and evaluate one or many papers submitted by their classmates.
How do students submit multiple files for an assignment?
Turnitin is designed to check one file at a time for similarity however, in the assignment settings, you can create multiple parts for the assignment that accept one file each. You can also use the assignments tool in Moodle to create an assignment in multiple parts, if you want assignment submissions to consist of more than one file.
Can I request a paper(s) to be removed from database?
Turnitin papers are not allowed to be deleted as its considered violation of academic integrity. If you still would like to present your case, please contact the Student Conduct and Integrity Unit (studentconduct@unsw.edu.au) to obtain approval for removal of any Turnitin Papers with sufficient justification. Once SCIU approves, forward that along with course name, assignment name, paper ID for ETS Support to remove the paper.
How to give extensions / resubmissions in Turnitin?
Extensions/Resubmissions are provided in the Turnitin settings.
- To allow resubmission, go to the 'Similarity report options' section and set the 'Report generation speed' dropdown to a 'Student can resubmit' option.
- To allow submission after the due date, go to the 'Similarity report options' section and change the 'Allow submissions after the due date' dropdown.
- To change the due date, go to the 'Assignment Part' section and change the 'due date'.
Changes made to Turnitin will affect all students. For students with extensions, staff may enable submission after the due date or submit on behalf of students via the upload icon beside each student in the submission inbox.
When do students see their marks in Turnitin? (Post date)
In Turnitin, marks and feedback are hidden from students until the post date is passed. Instructors can adjust the post date in the Turnitin settings or submission inbox.
How to add Rubric in Turnitin?
Instructors can set up rubrics and grading forms in the 'GradeMark Options' section of the Turnitin activity settings. Rubrics are saved to each individual's account, other instructors will need to be shared or follow the steps on downloading an attached rubric to get a copy of it.
To create a new Turnitin rubric or Grading form:
1. Click 'Launch Rubric manager' in the Turnitin activity's settings.
2. In the top left menu, click 'Create new rubric' or 'Create new grading form'.
3. Click on the empty spaces to define the criteria. Click the + on the top left and right to add new criteria.
Can I use decimal points to mark in Turnitin?
Grading in Turnitin does not allow decimal points.
It is possible to create rubrics with decimal points that instructors can use when grading submissions through a rubric scorecard. However, while a decimal grade can be used within the rubric scorecard, it will be rounded up or down to the nearest whole number when applied to the paper. Although decimals are available in the rubric scale, it's not possible to apply them to the overall grade as Turnitin only supports whole numbers in the overall grade section.
Also, you can have the Turnitin grade round down into a decimal grade in GradeBook. For example, if you wanted to grade a Turnitin activity out of 10 to 1 decimal place: In the Turnitin activity settings you can set the Turnitin 'part 1' max mark to 100 and 'Grade' max grade to 10. When you give a student 95/100, this would give them a gradebook grade of 9.5/10.
Which file types are supported by Turnitin?
If the “Allow submission of any file type?” Setting is set to “Yes”, Turnitin will accept all files smaller than 100MB in size and less than 800 pages in length.
If the “Allow submission of any file type?” Setting is set to “No”, Turnitin will accept files that are smaller than 100MB in size, less than 800 pages in length and contain at least 20 words. For a full list of accepted file types, please visit Turnitin’s File requirements page.
For PDF submissions, please ask students to use either up-to-date versions of Adobe Acrobat or Microsoft Word to save their PDF files.
Can I get a Turnitin report without saving the paper in the Turnitin's database?
If you wish to upload the paper to Turnitin to check the similarity report, but do not want that paper to be stored in the Turnitin's database for future checking, there is an option in settings preventing of doing that. In the Turnitin settings, go to Similarity Report Options and under Store Student Papers, select no repository.
Can multiple graders mark a Turnitin submission at the same time?
No, this is not recommended. If two (or more) different graders are accessing a Turnitin submission at the same time, it's likely each other's work could be overwritten. Should multiple graders require marking a Turnitin submission, it's best if there is co-ordination to ensure that each grader adds their feedback before others go into the submission.
My similarity reports are stuck on pending, what do I do?
There are multiple causes for similarity reports not generating immediately. Firstly, Turnitin may take some time to generate the similarity report, especially if there is a high volume of submissions. Otherwise, try selecting the 'Refresh' icon corresponding to the student's submission.
The 'Report Generation Speed' setting also determines when similarity reports are generated. You may wish to check this setting to see if this may be the reason why reports generation is delayed (e.g. due date has not been reached). This setting can be found under the 'Similarity Report Options' tab of the Turnitin activity settings.
Please note, marking can commence whilst similarity reports are stuck on pending. Other features of the Turnitin Feedback Studio will not be affected by this.
If similarity reports are not generating after all of the above, please contact the EdTech Hub.
How does Turnitin perform word count?
The Word Counting function in Turnitin operates differently based on file types. For Microsoft Word files, it adopts a similar approach to MS Word, excluding words in text-boxes, footnotes, and endnotes. However, for PDF submissions, Turnitin utilizes a distinct algorithm due to the absence of a built-in word count tool in Adobe PDF. Consequently, PDF submissions may yield inflated word counts, encompassing all text, including footnotes, endnotes, and words within text-boxes.
To check word count in the submission, in the Feedback Studio, open the Information panel and the word count will be listed alongside the number of pages and characters found.
However, best practice would be to download the original submitted file using Download button in the Feedback studio and check the word count in the original document.