Turnitin FAQs

Below are some of the frequently asked questions or concerns about Turnitin, but remember you can always contact Brenda Warrington or Jennifer Klein at atasupport@gonzaga.edu with questions or comments about the program. You can also find information and tutorials at turnitin.com.
  1. Log into BlackBoard and open your class.
  2. Select a Content area for the course in the left navigation bar.
  3. Click the “Create Assessment” tab then select “Turnitin Assignment" from the drop-down options.
  4. Choose Paper or Revision Assignment then click the “next step” button.
  5. Give your assignment a title and choose the start and due date.
  6. Clicking on the “More Options” button gives you LOTS of additional preferences for the assignment.
  7. Click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the page. You should receive a “Turnitin assignment successfully added” response.
 
  1. Click on 'Course Tools' in BlackBoard
  2. Select 'Turnitin Assignments' - a full list of the course Turnitin assignments will display in the main screen
  3. Click on the title of a Turnitin assignment to view a list of all students and submissions
  4. Click on the Similarity Report percentage icon to the right of the student's name whose paper you would like to review.
 
  1. Click on 'Course Tools' in BlackBoard
  2. Select 'Turnitin Assignments' - a full list of the course Turnitin assignments will display in the main screen
  3. Click on the title of a Turnitin assignment to view a list of all students and submissions
  4. Click on the GradeMark icon (pen) to the right of the student's name whose paper you would like to review.

View a tour and interactive demo of the Feedback Studio: http://turnitin.com/assets/en_us/media/feedback-studio-demo/

 
Turnitin Feedback Studio is a complete redesign of the Turnitin interface that combines the Similarity report and GradeMark. It is simple and designed around empowering you by giving you the information and tools required for an efficient submission process. The instructor feedback, the similarity report, and EPS e-rater will all be seen on the same document. Visit Turnitin's Feedback Studio Success Kit for more in depth information.
 

You must create a Turnitin assignment first, then you can add the peer review aspect.

  1. Log into BlackBoard and open your class.
  2. Click on the “Content” button in the left navigation bar.
  3. Hover over the “Create Assessment” then select “Turnitin Assignment from the drop-down options.
  4. Choose PeerMark Assignment then click the “next step” button.
  5. Select an assignment to base the peer review on. Add point value and assignment dates. Save and continue.
  6. Define the distribution of papers. Click the edit link to change how many papers each student will review.
  7. If you click the "show more distribution options" link you can choose to exclude students from distribution or specify which student papers a student will review. Save and continue.
  8. Add instructions to the peer review questions if you like. Click the "Add Question" button to add questions for the review to answer. These can be free response, scale or chose from a sample library of questions.
  9. Click the “Save and Finish” button at the bottom of the page. You should receive a “Turnitin assignment successfully added” response.

Here are some detailed steps: Creating a PeerMark Assignment.

 
There are three different dates for every Turnitin assignment: Start, Due, and Post date. When students are unable to view the Turnitin resources for their assignments (such as the originality report, Grademark or the professor's comments) it is usually due to the Post Date. This is the date when students are allowed to view comments, grading, and other Turnitin features related to the assignment - before that date, they are only allowed to view the assignment as it was originally submitted. For example, in the image below, students will not be able to view the any of the Turnitin features until November 6th. If your students are unable to view comments or their grade, check the Post Date and make sure it is not set in the future.
 
Turnitin has partnered with Educational Testing Service to integrate its ETS® e-rater® grammar analysis tools within GradeMark, the online markup tool. This functionality is available to professors at Gonzaga and is already integrated into BlackBoard classes along with other products by Turnitin. The e-rater technology automatically flags grammar, style, usage, mechanics and spelling errors so instructors can spend less time correcting and more time teaching. Instructors can easily edit or remove individual marks on the student paper or choose to expose or hide entire categories of feedback.
 

If the assignment is set to allow only file types that Turnitin can check for originality, Turnitin will only accept files that can generate Originality Reports. This includes:

  • Microsoft Word® (.doc/.docx)
  • OpenOffice Text (.odt)
  • WordPerfect® (.wpd)
  • PostScript (.ps/.eps)
  • HTML
  • Hangul Word Processor file (.hwp)
  • Rich text format (.rtf)
  • Plain text (.txt)
  • Google Docs via Google Drive™
  • Adobe® PDF (text based)
  • Microsoft PowerPoint® (.pptx, .ppt, .ppsx, and .pps)
  • Microsoft Excel® (.xls and .xlsx).
If you do not have one of these formats, there is a work around to upload your paper. Go to the submit page for the assignment, you will see an option titled “choose a paper submission method”. Click on the down arrow and choose “cut and paste upload”. You will get a text box at the bottom of the page where you can copy all the text from your paper and paste it into that text box. Then click the submit button.