Tag: Turnitin

Assessment Period: Key Information for Students and Administrators

Posted on by digitaleducation

As we approach the assessment period, the Digital Education Office (DEO) would like to remind students and administrators of best practices for file preparation and assignment submission to keep in mind during the exam period. Please share this information with your students; we have also published this guidance on our DigiTalk blog if you would prefer to send them a link with the information.

Familiarise yourself with DEO’s guidance

It’s important for students to familiarise themselves, before their assignment deadline, with the guidance on preparing submissions in several formats, and with the assignment submission interface. You can do that now by looking at the three guides below:

For a list of assessment information relevant to students, please see our online submission guides for students.

How to avoid last-minute issues when submitting assignments

  • Allow as much time as possible to submit before the deadline, so that if you experience any technical difficulties, you can receive advice and resolve the issue before the submission due date and time.
  • Use a wired connection, as it tends to be more reliable than wireless connections, especially if the file to be uploaded is large.
  • Always use a laptop or PC rather than a tablet or mobile device when submitting work to Blackboard. We do not advise using the Blackboard app for assignment submissions.
  • Close any documents you are uploading before submitting them, as files being synchronised in the cloud may not save the latest changes until they are closed. It is also recommended to close any windows and programs other than Blackboard that could interfere with your submission.
  • Use Microsoft Edge as it is the recommended browser for accessing institutional resources, such as Blackboard. Google Chrome and Firefox are also supported. Please avoid using Safari, as its default privacy settings may cause access issues.
  • Always follow your school’s submission instructions. If you encounter issues, try switching browsers or clearing the cache; if problems persist, attempt resubmission or wait and try again later. For further assistance, contact your school office.

 If you have any questions about this blog post, please message us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Turnitin AI writing reports update

Posted on by digitaleducation

Turnitin has informed us that they updated the AI writing report on 14 October to improve accuracy while keeping false positives to a minimum. This update is part of their ongoing work to respond to the evolution of generative AI.

How will this update affect your AI reports?

Previously generated AI writing reports will not be updated retroactively. However, this improvement may result in some changes in AI scores between draft submissions made before the update and final submissions made after the update.

This update is automatically applied to all new submissions to Turnitin assignments and to Blackboard assignments with Turnitin enabled. You will not see any visual changes to the AI writing report or its highlighting, and you do not need to change any settings to benefit from the update.

Reminder about AI report interpretation

Although this technology has improved since its release, Turnitin AI writing reports can occasionally produce false positives. This means the report might incorrectly flag text as AI-generated. For this reason, Turnitin results should always be reviewed by subject experts and used as supporting evidence, not as a replacement for academic judgement.

If you have any questions about this update, please message us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

Scheduled Turnitin Maintenance, Saturday 9 August, 2025

Posted on by digitaleducation

Turnitin have informed us that their services will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance on Saturday 9 August between 16:00 and 22:00 BST. During this maintenance window, users will be unable to submit or mark papers, or to view marks, feedback or similarity reports.

Further information is available on the Turnitin status page.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

[Open] Gradebook will sometimes not display Turnitin submission statuses

Posted on by digitaleducation

Turnitin has informed us of an intermittent known issue causing the Blackboard Gradebook to fail to sync with Turnitin. More information can be found on Turnitin’s known issues log.

In the meantime, instructors can continue marking as usual via Turnitin’s Assignment Inbox by entering marks there, and also manually in the Gradebook column for affected students. We also recommend using Turnitin’s Assignment Inbox to check for non-submissions, rather than relying on the Gradebook.

We will provide an update as soon as we have one.

[Resolved] ‘Submit on behalf of’ button in Turnitin is currently unavailable

Posted on by digitaleducation

The supplier has notified us that the ‘Submit on behalf of’ functionality in Turnitin’s assignment inbox has been restored.

The incident occurred between 11 April and 17 April. The impact of the issue was limited, and most Turnitin users were unaffected.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused. If you have any questions, please contact digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[Resolved] Turnitin delay in similarity report generation

Posted on by digitaleducation

Turnitin has informed us that the issue causing a delay in Similarity Report generation has now been resolved.

Starting at 9.30 AM today, an unexpected service incident occurred in Turnitin causing a delay in the generation of Similarity Reports. The impact of this issue was limited, and most Turnitin users were unaffected. Students were still able to submit work, although they may have experienced a delay in receiving their report.

If you have any questions or concerns about this issue, or if you believe you have been affected, please get in touch by emailing digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[Closed] Turnitin delay in similarity report generation

Posted on by digitaleducation

Turnitin is currently experiencing an unexpected service incident, which may result in delays in the generation of Similarity Reports. Students are still able to submit work, but they may experience a delay in receiving their report.

The supplier is aware of the issue and is working to restore full functionality to Turnitin.

If you have any concerns or questions, please contact us by emailing digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[Closed] ‘Submit on behalf of’ button in Turnitin is currently unavailable

Posted on by digitaleducation

We are aware of an issue affecting the display of the ‘Submit on behalf of’ functionality in Turnitin’s assignment inbox. The issue has been reported to Turnitin Support Engineers, who are currently investigating.

In the meantime, if you need to upload a paper on behalf of a student, there is a workaround available for non-anonymous assignments: selecting the three dots in the Options column for the student and clicking Upload.

For further details, please refer to the guide to Submitting on behalf of a student.

Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

Student access to Turnitin submission points – reminders for assessment period

Posted on by digitaleducation

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 for you, we recommend updating your browser’s security settings to enable JavaScript and third-party cookies specifically for accessing Turnitin submission points.

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 issue can be resolved by adjusting the browser’s Privacy & Security preferences by adding “api.turnitin.com” and “api.turnitinuk.com” to the sites that are allowed to use JavaScript / third-party cookies. This change will ensure that Turnitin’s required background scripts are not blocked.

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.