Turnitin Questions and Answers from Training Sessions Questions Answers Notes Will a submission to Turnitin be textmatched against student papers stored in the Turnitin repository? Can I choose not to save a student submission into the Turnitin repository? If a student re-submits a paper to Turnitin for the same assignment, what happens to the student s previous submission for that assignment? If a student has resubmitted a paper to the same assignment, will Turnitin check that resubmission against his/her previous submissions (therefore resulting in a very high similarity percentage); or will it exclude previous versions submitted by that student? As a lecturer, do I need to set up draft/final Turnitin assignment inbox to prevent students' new submissions from being checked against their previous submitted paper? This is determined by the Check against stored student papers setting in the Turnitin Advanced Options. If this setting is set to Yes, it will be checked against other students work stored in Turnitin repository. Yes, as a Lecturer, you can set the Store Student Papers setting to No Repository. This means that submitted papers will not be saved in the Turnitin repository (i.e. Standard repository ). This does mean however that if two students submit the same paper to the same assignment, Turnitin will NOT find a match between them. This setting may however be helpful for group projects, where several people in a group are required to submit the same paper for the assignment. When a student resubmits, the previous paper the student submitted is deleted permanently and cannot be restored. This is because there can only be one paper per assignment for each student in the unit. When students re-submit (either by the lecturer deleting their paper or allowing resubmissions in the assignment) the previous version of the paper will be overwritten by the latest submission. If a student submits the same or similar papers to Turnitin they will NOT match each other. This is because previously submitted papers are overwritten by resubmissions. There is NO need to set up separate Turnitin assignments for draft and final submission. Students new submissions will keep overwriting their previous submitted papers before the due date passes and these new submissions won t be checked against their previous submitted paper/s. Note: Similar papers submitted to a different unit, from the same student WILL match, even if they were submitted by the same student. NOTE: If the lecturer wants to keep multiple drafts, he/she must create multiple Turnitin assignments (draft, revision, final, etc.) and have the student submit each revision of the paper to a new assignment. Deb McCormick Educational Technologies Training Coordinator March 2014. Page 1
If students in the same unit submit similar papers to the same assignment, will these submissions be checked against each other as soon as they are submitted to Turnitin? The due date for the assignment I have created has passed but there are still no new reports being generated. How can I get the new reports? How do I exclude/restore a match? It is confusing that the selection button for Turnitin appears separate from the standard Moodle assignment button due to it being sorted in alpha order. How does TII identify a Bibliography? Whether and when submissions made to the same assignment are checked against each other is determined by how the Turnitin assignment has been set up. Key settings determining the matching results include: Report generation speed, Check against stored student papers, Assignment Due Date. Sometimes, the originality reports are not automatically refreshed to include the latest information available in the Turnitin database. Typically, when lecturers have two papers which they believe contain matching text however Turnitin is not flagging this, it is because the Originality Report (for the paper not showing the match) needs to be "refreshed" (see below) to show the matches between both papers. To refresh an Originality Report: 1. Open the report 2. Click on filter icon to the bottom right of the screen (looks like a funnel). 3. Click on the "new report" button Note: it will take about 5 minutes to generate the new report. You can perform a 'what if' by temporarily removing a source from an Originality Report to "recalculate" the similarity index. This feature is used for many reasons, but is often used when a paper has been submitted twice or more to Turnitin and the Originality Report is reporting a high percentage match to a previous submission. Removing a source from an Originality Report may provide a clearer picture. To view your Originality Report and remove a source from the Originality Report using the original text version of the Turnitin interface: 1. Open the Originality Report 2. The right side of the screen contains the matching information for the submission. Click on the small grey 'x' to the right of the match percentage and source, and it will prompt you to choose if you want to exclude this match from your view of the submission. 3. Click OK and the Originality Report will change to omit the matches from the source you have excluded. To re-include a source, use the 'mode' pull down menu at the top right of the originality report and choose show matches one at a time'. A small '+' icon will be displayed to the right of any source you have excluded. By clicking this icon, you can re-include a previously excluded source of match. Agreed, we will try to get it changed but it's not a priority. "When you choose to exclude bibliographies, our system will detect the following key words and Deb McCormick Educational Technologies Training Coordinator March 2014. Page 2
disregard matches in the paper after that point: references, references cited, references and notes, resources, bibliography, works cited" from TII Help http://turnitin.com/en_us/support/help-center. Are dates in Aus or US? Can I change settings after submissions have been made? Choosing the option 'review upload before submitting' 'breaks' Turnitin. When setting up a Turnitin assignment, there is an option to exclude quoted material. Does this refer to material in single quotation marks ( ) and/ or double quotation marks ( )? Will Turnitin text match the question if it is included in assignments? Do students get unique identifier Does each part of a Turnitin assignment have its own start/due/post dates? Why is the Turnitin Moodle Assignment max upload size lower than the standard Moodle assignment? Students are asked to sign a EULA (end User License Agreement), what does this mean for them in legal terms? Turnitin time is derived from the local time (Aus). Graders have the ability to edit most settings in an assignment after the assignment has already been created. Fields that are not editable are shaded in grey. However, changing Max Marks for parts of the assignment and the Grading Scheme for the assignment may have repercussions on students' grades. We recommend Max Marks and Grade are not to be updated once submissions are made. This has been added as a known issue. Only quotes given in double quotation marks (" "), or indented quotes are recognised by Turnitin. Material enclosed in single quotation marks (' ') is not recognised as quoted material. Yes. Yes. Yes. Each part of the Turnitin assignment would have its own Start, Due and Post Dates. The students will be able to see all of these dates when they open the assignment via the Moodle unit. Currently the max upload sizes available at Moodle unit level range from 10KB to 500MB and the max file size for a Turnitin assignment is capped at 20MB (as defined by the Turnitin Plugin). The Turnitin's max file size won't exceed 20MB even if you set a higher max value at Moodle unit level (i.e. 50, 100 or 150MB). However, if you adjust the Moodle unit max size to be lower than 20MB, the max size for both existing and new Turnitin assignments will be re-adjusted to match the Moodle value. Here are a couple of examples: When Moodle unit max upload is set to "100MB", the Turnitin max file size will stay at 20MB; When Moodle unit max upload is set to "10MB", the Turnitin max file size will be re-adjusted to 10MB. The Service to be provided by iparadigms to the Institution solely via the Institution s Moodle integration also reflects the requirements of the Institution, and particularly to provide that the relationship governing the provision of the Service is between iparadigms and the Institution, and not also as between iparadigms and the Institution s instructors and students. For this reason, despite the Institution s instructors and students being required at the time of accessing the Service Deb McCormick Educational Technologies Training Coordinator March 2014. Page 3
to enter into a User Agreement in the form substantially of that exhibited at Exhibit 1 to the Agreement ( User Agreement ) and in consideration for the indemnity described in section 12(c), iparadigms hereby warrants and agrees that it will not enforce any rights or benefits provided to it by that User Agreement to the extent such instructors or students engage the Service via Institution s Moodle integration, and hereby expressly waives any such rights it may otherwise have held, but for this section 1(c). The preceding waiver by iparadigms does not apply to the use of any iparadigms offering by Institution s instructors and students when such individuals use an iparadigms offering natively, as opposed to via Institution s Moodle integration, regardless of whether such individual has an Institution account. Have you (or staff in your faculty) tested or noted how long it generally takes for a student submission to go into the Turnitin student repository database for other submissions to be checked against? Can Turnitin be applied to existing assessment activities Can a Turnitin assignment be copied among Moodle units? If a student's details are stored in the document (including the Header or Footer) will they be text matched (and therefore have a chance of showing up on someone's Originality Report)? Can a Turnitin assignment be copied among Moodle units? I have not noted the length of time that it takes for the submission to go into the Turnitin repository. It's not immediate. I'd say, anecdotally it is about 2 days. No. The assessment must be recreated. Answer appears to be 'no' but further investigation required. Yes Answer appears to be 'no' but further investigation required. Follow-up required Concern re current wording 'Save and Display' - should say 'save and set dates'. Risks teacher not changing the default date which is one week after creation. Agreed. Will change if we can. Deb McCormick Educational Technologies Training Coordinator March 2014. Page 4
Scenarios The table below outlines the different combination of the above settings and that matching that will take place as a result of each combination. Report Generation Speed Check against stored student papers Assignment Due Date Matching results immediately and the report is final is selected Yes is selected Not passed; or Passed but late-submissions are allowed The submissions will be checked against the Turnitin repository and other submissions from the same assignment upon submission immediately; reports can be overwritten until due date is selected immediately; reports can be overwritten until due date is selected Yes is selected Not passed The submissions will be checked against the Turnitin repository on initial submission but will not be checked against the other submissions from the same assignment until the due date. The originality report is immediately generated and provided to the student (i.e. *before* the due date of the assignment) and it does NOT include matches to other student papers in the SAME assignment. Before the assignment due date passes, the report only includes matches to existing student papers already in the Turnitin database, journals, publications and internet sources Yes is selected Due date has passed Once the due date is reached, a new originality report will be completely and automatically regenerated for ALL submissions in the assignment, thus comparing submissions between students in the *same* assignment. There are a number of reasons as to why the system works in this way, one reason is to prevent students submitting work, getting the score from their friends work from whom content was 'borrowed', then slightly editing the work and continually resubmitting until the score is at a 'reasonable' level. Note: We have noticed that sometimes, this new report is not being generated and the lecturer will need to refresh originality reports to check matching papers. on due date Yes is selected Due date has not passed No report will be generated until the due date on due date Yes is selected Due date has passed Once the due date is reached, the submissions will be checked against the Turnitin repository and other submissions from the same assignment upon submission Deb McCormick Educational Technologies Training Coordinator March 2014. Page 5