Turnitin has informed us that the Feedback Studio is currently experiencing an unexpected service incident.
During this time, users may intermittently find that Similarity Reports are stuck processing or encounter issues when attempting to download a copy of a Similarity Report and/or digital receipt.
Further information is available on the Turnitin status page.
If you have any concerns or questions, please contact us by emailing digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
An error has been identified in Blackboard Annotate that can affect the display of submitted Microsoft Power Point (PPTX) documents containing grouped images. The error rearranges the images displayed in the Annotate interface, affecting the marker’s view of the document.
Blackboard developers are aware of the error. However, they cannot fix the issue, as it depends on third-party software beyond their control.
This error affects the DEO’s “Blackboard Online” workflow, and we have updated the recommendations in our EMA – Blackboard Online Workflow guidance to remind users that Blackboard Annotate works better when files are submitted in PDF format. While students can still submit documents in other formats, we cannot guarantee that footnotes, grouped images, and styling will be displayed correctly.
It has come to our attention that the AI writing detection reports in Turnitin LTI were not generated for submissions made between 1 August and 5 August. We are currently investigating this issue with the supplier and will provide updates as soon as we receive further information from their support team.
In the meantime, if your course has been affected and you need to regenerate these reports, please contact us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk, providing a list of the affected courses and their respective submission points.
Turnitin has resolved a formatting issue that was affecting the display of information in the assignment inbox. This improvement has resulted in the removal of timestamps from the ‘uploaded’ column. Submission timestamps are now visible only when hovering over the submission date or by downloading the Grade Report from the assignment inbox.
Please note that late submissions will still be highlighted in red.
If you have any questions or concerns, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
Turnitin has released a new Turnitin Help Center. Users will be able to access past cases through the old support centre until 20 September 2024. After this date, access to the old support centre will no longer be available.
If you have any questions about this change, or would like to know more, please refer to Turnitin’s Frequently Asked Questions page, or contact us at digital.education@bristol.ac.uk.
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 has informed us that, from 16 July, two new improvements will be added to the AI writing report:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
Turnitin has released additional resources to learn more about the new AI writing detection features in the classic report view:
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:
If you experience any problems, please contact the DEO via digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.
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.