TurnItIn Assignments
TurnItIn Assignments
TurnItIn is an internet-based plagiarism-detection service. It checks homework assignments and essays to an extensive global database and checks the documents for plagiarism.
Note: Overwritten or resubmitted papers may not generate a new Originality Report for a full twenty four hours. This delay is automatic and allows resubmissions to correctly generate without matching to the previous draft.
Creating a TurnItIn Assignment
- Click on the
button.
- Click on the Add an Activity drop-down menu and click on TurnItIn.

- Create an Assignment name, write an adequate Description for the assignment, and define the Grade type, Available from date for submission, and Due date.
- Set whether to allow students to submit late or not. After the due
date & time, students will be
blocked unless late submissions are enabled.
Note: The Available from and Due date are required settings when creating a TurnItIn assignment.
- Click on
when you are finished.
You will be redirected to the TurnItIn page for Moodle.
- You may choose to click Submit to proceed with posting the assignment as it is...

- You may also choose to further customize the assignment by configuring the following options:
- Generate Originality Reports for submissions?
This option allows instructors to view the Originality Reports for submissions to an assignment in the assignment’s inbox. - Generate Originality Reports:
- Immediately (first report is final): students are only allowed one submission.
- Immediately (can overwrite previous reports until due date): students may overwrite previous submissions.
- On due date (generate report on the due date): Report only generated on the due date.
- Allow students to see Originality Reports? This option gives you the choice of whether or not students can see their Originality Reports in their class assignment portfolio.
- Submit papers to: Leave it to the default setting (standard paper repository).
- Generate Originality Reports for submissions?
Note: If you set it to ‘no repository’, then the papers turned in would not be stored in the database and used for future plagiarism searches.
- Search options: Make sure that all three boxes are checked, that will allow a greater percentage of accuracy in the results.
- Click on
to make the assignment available. - It will then show you a preview of how the assignment appears to the students and shows the Due date and Time.

Instead on the breadcrumb
Viewing Plagiarism Assessment Results
- Click on Assignments in the Administration Block. Then click on the assignment to be reviewed.
- Click on View # submitted assignments.

- The following page resembles a typical inbox with the submitted assignments listed with the Author’s name, the paper’s title and the similarity report.

- The colors indicate whether the paper is plagiarized or not. Red represents high levels of suspected plagiarism and Green represents that the paper is original. There is also a percentage value next to the color that represents the overall amount of the paper that was plagiarized.
- If you click on the colored graphic under report, a detailed report is shown that includes the plagiarized sources that the paper used.

- The bibliography listed on the right hand side of the screen is numbered to correspond with the different sections of the paper. This shows where each section was plagiarized from.

- Further, the bibliography may show a Paper ID if it matches a paper that was submitted by another student elsewhere; it may also show a website URL if the material came from a website.

Syncing the Class Roster
Enrolled students will appear in the assignment inbox once they have accessed a TurnItIn assignment in the course. To refresh the student list into the students’ inbox, an instructor can synchronize the assignment roster.
- Click on the Roster Sync button in the assignment inbox.

- A message will appear reporting: 'Synchronizing Class Roster...'

- This will import a list of all students currently enrolled in the Moodle course for the assignment.

Note: This function can also be used to remove student users who are no longer enrolled in the course. All submissions and data for students that are removed by a Roster Sync will disappear from all TurnItIn assignments in the course.
Grading a TurnItIn Assignment
- Click on Assignments in the Administration Block. Then click on the assignment to be reviewed.
- Click on View # submitted assignments in the top right corner of the assignment view.

- Click on the assignment title you would like to grade. The assignment will pop up in a new window.

- The new window will display the paper. Enter the grade for the assignment in the blank box next to “Grade for this paper."

- Then, click the next icon, which is located beside the maximum grade value of the assignment.
TurnItIn: From a Student's Perspective
- Click on the course where the assignment is due for.
- Click on the assignment in the course page. E.g. Paper 1

- It gives you the description/ question and the Due date and Time.

- Click on Submit to proceed with handing in the assignment.
- The following page has a User Agreement Disclaimer for which you have to simply click
. Note that this step is for the first time only. - Click on the Submit Icon on the following page.

- TurnItIn allows students to submit papers in two ways:

- You may choose to upload the file by browsing it from a location. For this option, make sure that the submit a paper by: is set to

- The second option is to copy and paste the paper. Set the submit a paper by: to
. A student will then be able to paste the text of their paper into the text window that appears in the bottom of the screen. - You will be next required to enter your name (which is usually entered by default). You will also need to enter submission title, which can be like a subject (e.g. Assignment 1).

- Click on
to post the assignment.
