Author Archives: digitaleducation

SafeAssign Maintenance 31 July

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On Wednesday 31 July, between 09:00 – 11:00 BST, SafeAssign will undergo a maintenance update.

Learn clients will experience impacts for up to seven hours. All submissions during this time will be queued and will be processed at the end of the maintenance period.

This downtime is essential for a backend infrastructure update, as Blackboard is transitioning to a new infrastructure.

If you have any questions about this update, please refer to the Blackboard status page or email us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.

Turnitin AI writing report updates

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Turnitin has informed us that, from 16 July, two new improvements will be added to the AI writing report:

  1. Turnitin has increased the maximum word count limit for submissions from 15,000 words to 30,000 words for AI writing detection. This means that any submitted document with less than 30,000 words will now generate an AI writing report.
  2. Additionally, Turnitin will no longer display an AI score for documents where their algorithm detects less than 20% AI writing, to avoid potential incidents of false positives. When AI writing is detected below the 20% threshold, it will be reported with an asterisk (*) and no percentage will be attributed.

These changes apply to new submissions only and will not retroactively affect existing submissions.

If you have any questions about these updates, please email us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.

New Turnitin AI paraphrasing detection [Updated]

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On 16 July, Turnitin will upgrade its AI writing detection feature to include a new paraphrasing detection capability. This enhancement will help identify instances where paraphrasing tools have been used to modify AI-generated text in student submissions. The detection will run automatically for all assessments submitted to Turnitin LTI assignments. Therefore, there is no need to update your reassessment submission points to have access to the AI paraphrasing detection tool.

How does it work?

Student-submitted content that may have been modified using an AI paraphrasing tool will be flagged as likely AI-generated in the AI writing report. The report will highlight text that Turnitin’s model predicts was likely written by an AI tool in a different colour from content that was likely AI-written and subsequently modified using an AI paraphrasing tool, to distinguish between them.

Turnitin will not differentiate between likely AI-paraphrased matches and likely AI-generated text in the AI writing report. However, as Turnitin continues to develop and improve this feature, their aim is to include such differentiation in the future.

Will it detect grammar-checking tools?

Turnitin’s paraphrasing detection tool is not designed to target grammar-checking tools like Grammarly, which modify spelling, grammar, and punctuation, but rather other AI content written by large language models (LLMs) such as GPT-3.5.

Information for students

The University has produced guidance that has been made available to students about Contract Cheating, Academic Integrity, and Using AI at University. Furthermore, it is important to reassure students that ‘Turnitin evidence is always interpreted by academics and used in context, to supplement judgement rather than to replace it’ (Turnitin’s artificial intelligence detector tool).

Contact us

We will update this blog with additional information as soon as the supplier releases more resources. In the meantime, if you have any questions about this new development, please refer to the Turnitin AI Writing Detection Capabilities or email us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.

Additional resources from Turnitin

Turnitin has released additional resources to learn more about the new AI writing detection features in the classic report view:

[Open] Turnitin error: ‘Invalid or missing state’

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We are aware that some users are seeing the error message ‘Invalid or missing state’ when trying to access Turnitin. This issue has been reported to Turnitin; the following workarounds should re-enable access.

If using Safari or Firefox, we recommend that users try accessing Turnitin via Chrome or Microsoft Edge in the first instance.

If the error persists, we ask that instructors edit their Turnitin assignments to open in the same tab as the Blackboard page. To do this:

  • Click on the chevron next to the Turnitin assignment and select Edit
  • Scroll to the Web link options section and change ‘Open in New Window’ to ‘No’

  • Click Submit at the bottom of the page.
  • You will see a pop-up asking if you would like to change the Turnitin submission to open in a new window; click Cancel.

  • You will exit the Edit page; click on the assignment to check that Turnitin opens in the same tab.

If you experience any problems, please contact the DEO via digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[Closed] Turnitin long loading times

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We have been made aware that the Turnitin LTI is taking a long time to load when submitting work, creating a submission point, and when editing or interacting with an existing submission point. The delay in access can take up to five minutes to load.

We are currently working with the supplier to resolve this and will update as soon as we are able.

Turnitin Paper Lookup tool

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Turnitin has released the Paper Lookup tool that will allow instructors to retrieve submissions from past assignments (including Basic and Direct Building Block and LTI assignments).

The tool will allow those instructors who have previously interacted with the submission point:

  • to retrieve reports generated for the submissions – including the Similarity Report, Grading Report, and a combination Similarity Report and Grading Report – within the Blackboard environment
  • to access past submissions and associated reports from students who may have dropped from the course or are inactive.

To access the tool, instructors should navigate to Course Management in their current or past Blackboard courses. Then, click on Course Tools and find the Turnitin Paper Lookup Tool near the bottom of the list. This tool will also be available in Blackboard Ultra, accessed via ‘Books & Tools’ in the Ultra course view.

Recovering files

If you need to recover a Turnitin submission from a course where you have not previously interacted with the submission point, locate the Turnitin submission point and wait for the Assignment Inbox to load. You will then be able to find any files submitted to that submission point.

This process can be slightly more challenging with Turnitin Building Block submissions (ie older Turnitin submissions with a View/Complete link). For these, you will need to identify the unit owner, administrator, or instructor who marked or moderated the papers and ask them to retrieve the files for you.

Administrators and Instructors will be able to access submissions using the new Turnitin Paper Lookup Tool. To access it:

  1. Log into a course using your instructor account
  2. Navigate to Course Management
  3. Open Course Tools
  4. Click on Turnitin Paper Lookup Tool.
  5. Type the course name in the search bar
  6. Click on the course name to find all the Turnitin assessments in the course
  7. Click on a specific assessment to access the assignment inbox with the submitted files
  8. You will be able to download:
    1. Similarity Report
    2. Original File
    3. Grading Report
    4. Grading and Similarity Report.

If the original unit owner, administrator, instructor, marker, or moderator is no longer employed in your school, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk with the instructor’s details, the name of the submission point you are trying to access, and the name of the student whose submissions you are trying to retrieve.

For more information about the tool, please visit The paper lookup tool for Feedback Studio – Turnitin Guides.

[RESOLVED] Advisory message about Blackboard email services outage: check emails sent last night.

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We were informed of a temporary outage of Blackboard email services after close of business yesterday (08 May 2024). This issue affected all Blackboard email services globally, including any Blackboard notifications that were also sent as emails and the production of submission receipts.

Whilst the service has now been restored, we advise you to check and resend any Blackboard emails you attempted to send yesterday.

[Resolved] Issue with Blackboard receipts

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Blackboard has successfully resolved the issue with their receipting tool. Consequently, students submitting work to a Blackboard Assignment should now receive a confirmation email containing the details of the submitted work and a link to the document.

Please note that the issue only impacted student submissions to Blackboard Assignments on Tuesday, 7 May. Nevertheless, all receipts were securely stored in Blackboard, and students were able to access their submission records by navigating to the Submission Receipts section within My Marks.

[Closed] Issue with Blackboard receipts

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We have identified an issue with our Blackboard receipting tool, which is currently not always sending out email receipts to students after they have submitted their work. The receipts are always being stored in Blackboard, however.

As a temporary measure, we therefore advise students to check the “Submitted” section of “My Marks” after submitting their work. If a receipt is not recorded there, they should attempt to submit their work again and then contact their school if the issue persists. However, if a receipt is present, they should take a screenshot, note the time, and be assured that their work has been successfully submitted.

We are prioritising this matter and have raised it with Blackboard as an urgent issue. We will provide updates as soon as the issue has been resolved.