Manhattan College Knowledge Base

Quickstart Guide: Creating a Turnitin Assignment in Moodle

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This tutorial guides you through the process of setting up a Turnitin assignment in Moodle. Turnitin is a tool that checks for plagiarism and AI use in student submissions. By adding it to Moodle, you can automatically scan assignments for originality. Follow the steps below to integrate Turnitin into your Moodle course.

On the Course Page

Make sure that editing is turned on by clicking the Edit mode toggle in the upper right corner of your course page.  Scroll to the desired Topic or Week, and at the bottom of that section click Add an activity or resource.  In the window that appears, select Turnitin Assignment 2 from the list of options.

A note about Turnitin accounts:  Turnitin accounts are created automatically when an instructor creates a Turnitin assignment in Moodle.

Once your account is created in Moodle, you may log in to Turnitin.com directly by selecting Login and completing a password reset.

General Settings

  1. In the textbox below Turnitin Assignment Name, type a name for your assignment.  
  2. In the textbox below Summary type the directions for the assignment.
  3. By default the Submission Type will be set to Any Submission Type.  You have the option to restrict the submission type to accept only file uploads or only text submissions.
  4. By default, the Number of Parts will be set to one. Turnitin assignments can each have up to five parts, each with their own due date. This is useful if students will be completing a draft of their assignment or completing the assignment in stages.

Refer to the Turnitin Instructor Guide for details on additional settings options not covered in this tutorial. Changing these settings is optional when creating a Turnitin Assignment, but available for users who want additional customization options.

Grade

The default maximum grade for all assignments is 100.  If you would like to enter an alternative maximum grade, enter the number for the grade below Maximum grade.

Assignment Dates

For each assignment part, you will set dates for that portion of the assignment.  Turnitin assignments have different date options than normal Moodle assignments.

  1. Start Date: The earliest time a student can make a submission to the assignment part.
  2. Due Date: The final date by which the student should have submitted their assignment. If you are allowing late submissions, the submissions will be marked as late after this date.
  3. Post Date: The date when grades and feedback will be released to students.

If students indicate that they can't see their grade or feedback for a Turnitin assignment, be sure to check the Post Date. The most common reason that students can't see their grade for a Turnitin assignment is because the Post Date is in the future.

Similarity Report Options: Student submission settings

These options pertain student submissions and allow you to control whether or not students can submit after the due date, resubmit, and whether the submission is stored in Turnitin's database.

  1. Allow Submissions after the Due Date:  Indicate whether students can submit after the due date.  By default, this option is set to No. The options are:
    • No: Late submissions are not accepted.  After the due date, the option to submit no longer displays.
    • Yes: Late submissions are accepted, but will be marked as late.  
  2. Report Generation Speed: Decide when originality reports are generated and if students can have multiple attempts to submit. By default, this option is set to Generate reports immediately (students cannot resubmit). The options are:
    • Generate reports immediately (students cannot resubmit): Originality reports are created immediately and students may not resubmit papers. Submissions must be deleted by the instructor to enable resubmission.
    • Generate reports immediately (students can resubmit until due date): The Originality Report is generated immediately. Students may resubmit as often as the student wishes up until the due date. Turnitin will require students to wait 24 hours between viewing each subsequent Originality Report. Only the latest submission is available to the student and instructor. When the due date passes the originality report is regenerated and student submissions within the same assignment are included in the comparison which may result in a change to the originality report similarity index. Resubmissions are not allowed after the due date.
    • Generate reports on due date (resubmissions are allowed until the due date): Originality reports for submissions are generated on the due date. Resubmissions are allowed up until the due date.
  3. Store Student Papers: Choose whether student papers are stored in the Turnitin Student Paper Repository. By default, this option is set to Standard Repository.  The options are:
    • Standard Repository: Most common option. Allows for comparison against future submissions
    • No Repository: For particularly confidential or sensitive student work, or where you are testing the system. Choose this option for any work that may be submitted for publication (e.g. drafts of journal articles).

Similarity Report Options: Report criteria

These settings control the criteria for the similarity report.  You can control which content the submission will be checked against as well as which portions of the submission should be excluded. By default, submissions will be checked against all available databases and the entire document will be evaluated.

Save

When you are finished adding and modifying the settings for your assignment, scroll to the bottom of the screen.

Click on Save and return to course to add your assignment and return to the main course page.  Click on Save and display to see how your new assignment will appear in Moodle.

At any time, you may click on Cancel to discard any changes.

Assignment Screen

Once the Turnitin assignment is created, click on the assignment link on the main course page to view student submissions and reports, and enter grades.

  1. Click on the blue pencil icon in the Grade column to  access Turnitin Feedback Studio where you can enter grades, add comments and view submission reports including the similarity score and AI generation rating.
  2. Click on a colored bar in the Similarity column to go directly to the detailed similarity report within the Turnitin Feedback Studio.

Feedback Studio Screen

Within the Feedback Studio, you can enter grades and feedback and view submission reports.

Feedback Studio navigation:

  1. Grade entry field
  2. Submission selector
  3. Instructor feedback tools
  4. Similarity tools and report
  5. Submission download options
  6. AI report (include AI report download

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