Category Archives: Service announcements

[Open] Turnitin M14: 11 error with PowerPoint submissions

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There have been occasional and intermittent errors reported by users when attempting to access PowerPoint files submitted to Turnitin. Affected files cannot be opened within Turnitin and students may not get a digital receipt.

The error typically reads:

Turnitin M14 error message

The Digital Education Office has reported this issue to Turnitin, who are investigating. Currently, they believe it to be related to certain uses of images in PowerPoint, including PowerPoint templates and animations.

The issue can be avoided if students save PowerPoints as PDFs for submission. Students can save work created in PowerPoint as a PDF by selecting “Save As” and changing the file type to PDF.

If you require further guidance, or have any other queries, please contact the Digital Education Office.

Clear your cache to prevent possible equation display issues

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Occasionally users may find equations do not display correctly in Blackboard. If this occurs you should clear your browser cache, then refresh/reload Blackboard.  Clearing the cache can also be done in advance as a preventative measure once you have logged into Blackboard eg if students are taking a test which includes equations 

Firefox is unaffected by these occasional equation display issues. 

How to clear your cache

Chrome

  1. Click on the group of three dots in the top-right corner of the Chrome window to open the menu.
  2. Select ‘Settings’ from the menu.
  3. On the ‘Settings’ screen, select  ‘Privacy and security’
  4. Click on ‘Clear browsing data’.
  5. On the ‘Clear browsing data’ screen, tick the box next to ‘Cached images and files’, set the time range to ‘All time’ and click ‘Clear data’.
  6. Close down the Settings tab and refresh/reload Blackboard.

Microsoft Edge

  1. Click on the group of three dots in the top-right corner of the Edge browser window to open the menu.
  2. Select ‘Settings’ from the menu.
  3. On the ‘Settings’ screen, select ‘Privacy, search, and services’ from the list on the left side of the menu.
  4. Under the ‘Clear browsing data’ heading, click ‘Choose what to clear’.
  5. Set Time range to ‘All time‘ , tick the box next to ‘Cached images and files’ and click ‘Clear now’.
  6. Close down the Settings tab and refresh/reload Blackboard.

Instructions for other browsers on how to clear the cache should be available from the Help section on the browser menu, or its online support pages.

Apologies for any inconvenience. The DEO is continuing to work with Blackboard on a permanent fix.

Important information if batch uploading papers to Turnitin

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Staff using a Blackboard marking workflow who require Turnitin similarity reports can batch download assignments from Blackboard and batch upload them to Turnitin. Since the move to the Turnitin LTI integration this functionality (zip file upload) is only available to Instructors via the Turnitin website (please contact DEO if you require instructions).
Batch upload via the Turnitin website should not be used if marking is to be done using Turnitin. Papers uploaded in this way will not sync with the Blackboard Grade Centre.
If marking with Turnitin is required papers must be submitted via Blackboard.

If you have any queries please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

Questionmark scheduled maintenance Saturday 17 December 2022 09:00- 15:00

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Dear colleagues,

Questionmark Scheduled Maintenance: Saturday 17 December 2022 –  09:00-15:00

The purpose of the maintenance is to deploy system updates to ensure the ongoing reliability, security and up time of the platform.

During this time all users may experience service disruptions. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk

[Closed] Re/Play timeout error message

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This issue is now resolved. See the updated blog post for the latest information. 

We are aware of reports of a timeout error message when trying to access Re/Play from a Blackboard course menu link (eg to the unit collection of recordings). The supplier has identified the issue is related to search based functions, and is working to resolve it as soon as possible. Recordings added or shared by other methods (eg added via the build content tools in Blackboard) are currently unaffected.

We apologise for any inconvenience this has caused.

[Open] Turnitin LTI assignment optional settings not being saved

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The DEO has identified an issue whereby optional settings chosen during creation of a Turnitin LTI assignment may not be correctly saved. These optional settings include Compare against options, Attach a rubric and the Generate Similarity Reports for student submission dropdown menu.

This has been reported to Turnitin and they are currently investigating the issue.

In the meantime, as a workaround, saving the assignment settings for future use upon assignment creation will ensure that the selected settings are correctly applied. This can be done when creating the submission point by:

  1. Opening the Optional settings
    Optional settings image
  2. Selecting the option Save these settings for future use
  3. Clicking Submit to save the changes.
    Additional settings image

Alternatively, instructors may wish to edit the assignment before use to check the settings, in which case any changes made during editing will be applied. To do this instructors will need to:

  1. Access the Turnitin submission point to reach the Assignment Inbox
  2. Click on the top right cog icon to access the settings
  3. Open Optional settings
  4. Modify the required settings
  5. Click Submit to save the changes.

We apologise for any disruption that this issue may cause. We will provide an update as soon as we have any further information from the supplier.

In the meantime if you have any questions please contact the DEO.

Questionmark scheduled maintenance Saturday 19 November 2022 09:00- 15:00

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Dear colleagues,

Questionmark Scheduled Maintenance: Saturday 19 November 2022 –  09:00-15:00

The purpose of the maintenance is to deploy system updates to ensure the ongoing reliability, security and up time of the platform.

During this time all users may experience service disruptions. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

If you have any questions, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk