Using TurnItIn

Relevant to: faculty and staff

This article contains information considered accurate at the time of publishing. Technology updates, changes in University security practices, policies and procedures may effect the information in this article - updates to articles are scheduled on a periodic basis and will address any required changes.

Introduction

Brightspace comes integrated with the TurnItIn suite of plagiarism detection tools. Though some may have experience using TurnItIn previously, the tool has some key changes to keep in mind.

TurnItIn, A Primer

Turnitin is a cloud-based solution with capabilities in originality checking and online grading using their Similarity Report and Online Grading tools. Turnitin saves instructors time and facilitates personalized feedback for learners.

Similarity Report lets you monitor Assignment submissions and identify potential cases of plagiarism by automatically comparing submissions to an online database of original content. You can then view Originality Reports which highlight key areas, show a breakdown of matching sources, and provide direct links to the matching content.

Similarity Report features are enabled through integration with TurnItIn from iParadigms, LLC.

Please note that TurnItIn cannot be enabled for Brightspace Discussions. Discussion posts can be checked in the Faculty TurnItIn portal.

Enable TurnItIn for an Assignment

TurnItIn is available on an assignment-by-assignment basis, meaning that it must be activated manually for any assignments you want to check submissions for potential plagiarism. TurnItIn can be enabled both on the creation of a new assignment or activated after creation.

To enable TurnItIn while creating a new assignment:

To view a video of the content in this section, use this link.

1. Follow the steps for creating an Assignment.
2. While on the New Assignment page, under the Evaluation and Feedback settings, there will be a heading titled TurnItIn Integration.
3. Select Manage TurnItIn to show the TurnItIn-specific settings.
4. To enable the Similarity Report for this assignment, select Enable Similarity Report for this folder.
5. To allow learners to see their similarity scores, select the Allow learners to see similarity scores in their submission folder option.
6. It is recommended to automatically perform similarity checking on all submissions, leaving the Submissions Checked option at its default. If you want to perform spot-checking of specific assignments, however, you can change this setting to "Identify individual submissions for similarity checking".
7. Select Save to save your changes for the TurnItIn plug-in.

To enable TurnItIn for an already-created assignment:

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1. On the navbar, select Course Menu, then Assignments from the drop-down menu.
2. Select the downward-facing arrow next to the name of the assignment you want to activate TurnItIn on and select Edit Assignment.
3. While on the Edit Assignment page, under the Evaluation and Feedback settings, there will be a heading titled TurnItIn Integration.
4. Select Manage TurnItIn to show the TurnItIn-specific settings.
5. To enable the Similarity Report for this assignment, select Enable Similarity Report for this folder.
6. To allow learners to see their similarity scores, select the Allow learners to see similarity scores in their submission folder option.
7. It is recommended to automatically perform similarity checking on all submissions, leaving the Submissions Checked option at its default. If you want to perform spot-checking of specific assignments, however, you can change this setting to Identify individual submissions for similarity checking.
8. Select Save to save your changes for the TurnItIn plug-in.

A Note on Using TurnItIn

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Adding TurnItIn to an assignment that is already in progress runs the risk of some of the documents not being submitted to TurnItIn for checking. If students have already submitted assignments prior to activating TurnItIn, those documents will not be automatically submitted.

To manually submit a document to TurnItIn:

1. On the navbar, select Course Menu, then Assignments from the drop-down menu.
2. Select the name of the assignment to which you want to submit documents to TurnItIn.
3. A list of submissions will appear for each student who has submitted to the assignment. To the right of the name of the document submitted will be an icon of an inbox. This is the Resubmit file to TurnItIn button.
4. Select the Resubmit file to TurnItIn button to manually submit the document to TurnItIn.
5. The checking process can take some time depending on server load, thus it is recommended to give the program at least an hour to fully check the document.