Knowledge Base

• Assignment Title (Required) – a short but purposefully descriptive title for your assignment (up to 20 words);
  
• Assignment Instructions – essential instructions for students to follow, such as file formats, use of templates, special considerations (up to about 100 words);
  
• Will you provide a template file for students to use or not? If you wish to use a template file, have it available to upload as part of the assignment;
  
• Assignment start date and time (24 -hour clock);
  
• Assignment due date and time (24-hour clock);
  
• Feedback release date and time (24-hour clock) – this used be called Post date and will for major module assessments usually be a date after exam boards have concluded;
  
• Marks for the assignment;
  
• Whether anonymous grading will be applied or not – anonymous grading should be used with caution;
  
• Allow late submissions – strongly advised; late submissions will always be clearly identified with dates in red.
  

Video (7m 30)

Downloadable Turnitin Feedback Studio Assignment Setup Checklist (PDF)

• Feedback Studio Assignment Setup Checklist
  

Step-by-step Guide

• Ensure that you have accessed Edit mode on the module or page where you wish to create a Turnitin assignment;
  
  
  
  
  
• Hover over the section where you wish to add the assignment and click the [+] or + Add an activity or resource button to open the Activity Chooser. Select the Recommended tab to locate and click on the Turnitin Feedback Studio activity;
  
  
  
  
  
• A New External Tool dialogue will open in Moodle within your module.
  
• Ensure that you click on the Select content button as the first step – do not complete any other details until you have completed the Select content step;
  
  
  
  
  
• When you click the Select content button, a new popup dialogue will appear. Allow 10 to 15 seconds for the details of the dialogue to appear. When details appear, you can expect to see the Create assignment fields as indicated below:
  

  
  

  
  

1. The dialogue is scrollable: what you initially see is a limited portion of the screen. Use your mouse wheel or the scroller on the right of the dialogue to move up and down the display;
   
2. Assignment Details (required): these are the essential configurations for the assignment;
   
3. Rubric (optional) – contains any rubric details that you wish to associate with your assignment;
   
4. Report Settings (required): configures such aspects as how similarity reporting is conducted, when similarity report are generated and whether students may see their similarity reports.
   

• Add a Title to your assignment. This should be a short but purposefully descriptive title for your assignment (up to 20 words). This Title will be displayed to students in Moodle;
  
• Provide assignment Instructions: essential instructions for students to follow, referring them to the key elements of the assignment brief, such as file formats, use of templates, special considerations (up to about 100 words) can be included here;
  
• Upload Template: this function is useful if you provide a standard template to students for filling their work. By uploading the Template file, all students can access the same file, download it for completion from within the assignment, and use it for submission. Text in the template is excluded from similarity, with only the students’ responses being subjected to similarity reporting. See How do I add a Template File to a Turnitin Feedback Studio assignment? for more details.
  
• Important: Once an assignment has received submissions, templates may no longer be added or edited!
  
• Scheduling allows you to configure the following dates, all of which are mandatory:
  
• Start Date: specify the date and time (24-hours) on which your assignment should open for submissions;
  
• Due Date: specify the date and time (24-hours) on which your assignment falls due for submissions. Accepting submissions on or after the due date/time is handled below;
  
• Feedback release date: this was titled Post Date in the ‘classic’ version. Where your assignment is a major semester summative assessment, this date will normally be set to a date after semester exam boards have met. For formative assessments, you may set this date to the date you anticipate that grading and feedback will be completed for students to access. See Feedback Release Date for more details.
  
  
  
  
  
• Grading and Feedback allows you to set: 
  
• The Max points - marks - available for this assignment;
  
• Whether student details on submitted assignments should be anonymised, that is that student names will be hidden from graders. Note that this cannot be reversed once a submission has been received. The feature should be used with caution. See Anonymised Marking in Turnitin for further details;
  
• A rubric to be attached, if required. Note, following this link will take you to the Rubrics tab. See [Using Rubrics with Turnitin Standard Assignments] for more details.
  
  
  
  
  
• Submission settings enables the configuration of:
  
• Late submissions: (recommended to allow – check) this allows students who may not have been able to submit by the due date to make one submission to the assignment. Late submissions will always be identified as such so that consideration or penalties may be made;
  
• Allowing resubmissions until the due date: (recommended to allow – check) this allows students to make repeated resubmissions to your assignment up to the due date. Students may revise or update their work and resubmit it up to three times in each 24 hour period before the due date. Disabling this would require that a student contacts you to request removal of a submission so they can resubmit, thereby increasing workloads all round.
  
• Allowing unsupported file types: (not recommended – uncheck) if used, this enables students to submit any file type, including files that are unsupported for generating Similarity Reports. This may negatively impact on the ability of Turnitin to accept the submission or to provide a Similarity Report.
  
  
  
  
  
• The Assignment Details tab is now complete, however, further configurations are needed. Do not click the Create Assignment button just yet. Scroll back to the top of the Select Content window and open the Rubric Tab.
  

• This tab allows the creation or application of a Rubric for your assignment.
  
• Rubric settings can be added and amended after the Turnitin Standard Assignment has been created which allows this section to be skipped;
  
• Rubrics can be added, amended or deleted provided that an assignment has received no submissions.
  
• For further details on Rubrics see the article [Using Rubrics with Turnitin Standard Assignments].
  
• Scroll back to the top of the Select Content window and open the Report Settings Tab.
  

• It is best to set Report Settings when creating an assignment. However, these settings may also be amended after creation. This section is divided into several important sections:
  
• Store submissions for comparison – this determines where Turnitin will store submissions for Similarity Reporting use. While a recommendation is provided, below, make your choice carefully (choose one only):
  
• Private institutional repository – best used where it is preferred that submissions are only stored in an institutional and compared in an institution context;
  
• General Turnitin repository (recommended) – appropriate for the broad majority of submissions where storage is in the general Turnitin database;
  
• Do not store the submitted papers – while a similarity report is generated, the submission is not saved to any repository. This may be appropriate for tasks like reflections where personal or sensitive information could be exposed.
  
  
  
  
  
• Compare submissions – allows you to specify what sources should be used for checking submissions in the processing of Similarity Reports: (choose all appropriate)
  
• Student paper repository (recommended) – comparison against previous student submissions to Turnitin across institutions;
  
• Institution paper repository (recommended) – compares submissions against others previously submitted from within MIC;
  
• Current and archived internet (recommended) – compares against live and archived internet pages, a data source that is perpetually updated;
  
• Periodicals, journals and publications (recommended) – compares against third-party periodicals which includes major journals, professional periodicals and business publications.
  
  
  
  
  
• Generate report – determines when Similarity Reports are created for student submissions. Reports may be generated:
  
• At the time of submission – in other words, immediately, or
  
• On due date (recommended).
  
• Consider whether you wish your students to be able to revise and resubmit their work for grading before the due date. It is advised to pair these settings.
  
  
  
  
  
• Report access – sets out whether or not students may see the similarity report for their submitted work. Under normal MIC procedures, this would normally not be recommended on module assignments as if may lead to increased workload for instructors:
  
• Allow students to view Similarity Reports (not recommended – unchecked).
  
  
  
  
  
• Translated Matching – this function allows your students to submit work in a non-English language and, based on the language provided, will translate the submission to compare and match against the existing Turnitin English language database. This facility is not normally beneficial and so can be left unchecked (not recommended).
  
• Exclusions – configuring the headers in this section can have the benefit of excluding certain information from increasing a submission’s similarity score. For further details, review the article [Similarity Reporting Exclusions: Quotes and Bibliographies].
  
  
  
  
  

• You can now Conclude the setup of the assignment. Review the settings you have added to satisfy yourself that all is as you intend it and then click Create Assignment.
  
• You will now be returned to the Moodle page for your module.
  
• You will see a confirmation displayed beside the Select content if your configuration has been successful;
  
  
  
  
  
• In addition, the Activity name displayed by Moodle will now display what you configured in Turnitin; The Activity description will prompt students to “Review the assignment for details”.
  
• Scroll to the Grade section on your Moodle page and click on the header to expand it. Update the grade point value to match the value provided in Turnitin, if needed.
  
• Optional
  
• To assist students’ time management and to add a reminder to them in their calendars/timelines within Moodle, expand the Completion Conditions section at the bottom of the page. Here you may enable the option Students must manually mark the activity as done. This will allow students to check-off the assignment when submitted. Additionally, you may Set reminder in Timeline to prompt students, choosing a date in advance of the Due Date for the assignment.
  
• Review your settings across the full New External Tool page and, when satisfied that all is in order, click the Save and Return to page at the bottom.
  
• You can expect to be presented with a Recalculating grades page which simply confirms that students enrolled on your module have been enrolled on the assignment. Click Continue to be returned to your module page.
  
• Your setup is now complete. You may re-enter the assignment by clicking on the Assignment link.