Tag Archives: Turnitin

Student access to Turnitin submission points – reminders for assessment period

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Ahead of the assessment period, we would like to remind you of two issues that may interfere with student access to their Turnitin submission points:

  1. The “Open in New Window” setting in Blackboard for Turnitin submission points
  2. The use of Internet browsers with strict privacy settings (eg Safari with its default factory settings).

For Administrators: Blackboard ‘web link options’ for Turnitin submission points

We recommend that instructors and administrators edit their Turnitin assignments to open in the same window as the Blackboard page, as opening in a new window may be treated as a “pop-up” window and blocked by some browsers. To do this:

  • Click on the chevron next to the Turnitin assignment and select Edit
  • Scroll down 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.

For Markers and Students: Internet browsers with strict privacy settings

We are aware that people are sometimes seeing the error message ‘Invalid or missing state’ when trying to access Turnitin. This issue has been reported to Turnitin and is linked to the privacy settings of the users’ internet browser.

Please make the following information available to students and staff in your school, to assist them if they encounter this error.

If using Safari, we recommend that users try accessing Turnitin via Chrome or Microsoft Edge in the first instance, as Blackboard and Turnitin submissions have been successfully tested with these University-supported browsers.

If switching browsers is not a suitable solution or you, we suggest updating the browser’s security settings to enable JavaScript and third-party cookies. The ‘Invalid or missing state’ message comes up when launching a Turnitin assignment in a new browser window with third-party cookies and/or JavaScript blocked. This can be resolved by editing the browser’s Privacy & Security preferences so that it will not block any background scripts that Turnitin is trying to load.

Please follow the steps below for your preferred browser:

  • In Safari, select Safari > Preferences > Security > Web content > Enable JavaScript
  • In Firefox, select File > Preferences > Privacy & Security; if Strict is enabled, please change this to Standard
  • In Microsoft Edge, select Microsoft Edge > Preferences > Cookies and Site permissions > JavaScript > Allowed (recommended)
  • In Google Chrome, select Settings (you can open the Settings page by clicking the icon with three stacked horizontal lines in your browser’s menu bar) > Privacy & Security > Site Settings > Content > JavaScript > Ensure that the option ‘Sites can use JavaScript (recommended)’ is enabled.

If you would rather not enable JavaScript and/or third-party cookies in general, please instead add “api.turnitin.com” and “api.turnitinuk.com” to the sites that are allowed to use JavaScript / third-party cookies.

Once you have completed reviewing your browser’s Privacy & Security preferences, please close your active browser and re-open a new browsing session so that any changes can take effect.

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

[Closed] Turnitin service incident, 9 August

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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.

Timestamp column in Turnitin Feedback Studio

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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.

 

New Turnitin support centre

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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.

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:

Turnitin Assignment Copy feedback release date should be set after the due date

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Recently, Turnitin introduced a new functionality called Assignment Copy, which allows instructors to copy assignment setups for re-use. When using this feature, instructors should be careful when setting their assignment dates to ensure that the due date does not fall after the feedback release date. If a due date is set to after the feedback release date, students will gain access to their marks and feedback as soon as these are created.

If you have any queries about using this feature, please email digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

 

[Open] Turnitin rubrics and sliding scales

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We have identified a bug in Turnitin rubrics, in which using the sliding scale to update a score does not update the number correctly.

Therefore, we recommend that, if you use the rubric slider to apply a grade, you should click on the rubric slider scale circle (please see the screenshot below) once you have positioned it, in order to fix the number. This should allow you to apply the grade without issues.

Turnitin is planning to address the issue in a future update of the product.

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