Blackboard Basic release notes

The Blackboard Learn Basic and Direct V2.5 Building Blocks are no longer available.

Subscribe to updates via RSS

Not sure what RSS is?

 

 

2022 April 12th

Self-managed paper deletions are now available for your institution (Available in all regions)

Paper Deletion requests can now be fully managed within your school. Previously, to ensure that we had the legal basis to process a deletion request, we had to require that requests come from the account administrator and were confirmed directly by them. This very manual process required multiple steps of exchanging emails.

Now, instructors can make a request from directly within the Assignment Inbox. We then pass this request to the account administrator, who can approve or reject it immediately without any need to contact Turnitin.

Curious to learn more? Check out the full Administrator and Instructor guides for all the details.

This is now defaulted on for all users of turnitin.com. Turnitinuk.com users retain the setting they have already applied. Not quite ready for this change? Learn how to toggle it off for now.

This is now the primary method for deleting papers going forwards for users of turnitin.com, turnitinuk.com, and Blackboard Basic. It makes the entire process self-serve and allows you to take control of the legal requirements of your institution. Paper deletion requests coming via the old method will only be considered in exceptional circumstances.

As we need to ensure a more thorough deletion of all user data, this method can’t be used for GDPR requests. Please contact legal@turnitin.com, and we’d be happy to help.

‘Submit paper to’ becomes a core Turnitin setting (Available in all regions)

Our research into paper deletions taught us that many instructors rarely change the optional settings once initially configured. While we encourage users to regularly check these settings to tailor the assignment truly to your teaching goals, we’ve made this setting one of the core options at the top of the assignment creation page.

The setting will work exactly as it did previously, but will be far more prominent when creating a new assignment.

2022 January 28th

 

Allow Any File Type setting will now copy with a course

A plugin update is not needed for this change.

All other settings would be replicated in a copied course except this one. We've updated how the settings transfer now so that Allow Any File Type will remain applied when copying a course.

This change resolves the known issue.

Access restored to users within the People's Republic of China

A plugin update is not needed for this change.

A pathing issue between Turnitin's servers and users within the People's Republic of China had prevented these users from using our integrations. This has now been resolved and access has been restored.

This change resolves the known issue.

2022 January 14th

Upgrade your plugin version to apply this fix.

Open Turnitin reports from the Gradebook after upgrading to BBLearn Release 3900.30

A change to Blackboard introduced in BBLearn Release 3900.30 caused issues with Blackboard Basic when attempting to access Turnitin reports from the Gradebook. This issue has been fixed and expected behaviour will return when upgrading to Blackboard Basic Plugin Version v2.8.14 (JDK 1.8) for Blackboard versions before 3800.0.0 , and v2.8.15 for Blackboard versions after and including 3800.0.0 (OpenJDK 11).

Download the latest plugin from the download page.

This fix resolves the known issue posted on 2022-14-01.

For users who can't immediately make the upgrade, alternative access paths are available:

• Instructors: Course Tools (from the left-hand navigation) --> “Turnitin Assignments” - Select the assignment --> all submissions will be listed and reports are linked.
• Students: Students can see their assignments and submissions from the “Content Section” (Original Course View left-hand navigation).

2021 November 11th

A plugin update is not needed for this change.

Paper Deletion requests are now be fully managed by the account administrator (turnitinuk.com only)

Only available on Turnitinuk.com, and UK users of Blackboard Basic and LTI.

Previously, to ensure that we had the legal basis to process a deletion request, we had to require that requests come from the account administrator and were confirmed directly by them. Now, instructors can make a request from directly within the Assignment Inbox. We then pass this request to the account administrator, who can approve or reject it immediately without any need to contact Turnitin.

This is now defaulted on for all users of turnitinuk.com. Not quite ready for this change? Check out the guide to learn how to toggle it off for now.

Paper Deletions have not been added to the LTI Inbox yet. However, these users can log in to turnitinuk.com directly to make a request. When a paper is deleted in this way, it won't be removed from the LTI inbox. Users of unsupported integrations can continue to use the manual process.

We’ll be rolling it out to all users, including via other integrations, in the coming months.

Once live for your geography or access path, this is the only way to make a paper deletion request going forwards, bringing the control entirely within your school. You won't have to contact Turnitin manually except in the most exceptional of circumstances.

As we need to ensure a more thorough deletion of all user data, this method can’t be used for GDPR requests. Please contact legal@turnitin.com, and we’d be happy to help.

2021 October 20th

A plugin update is not needed for this change.

Courses will no longer unpredictably extend after the class has expired

When accessing the assignment inbox for expired classes, the class would extend itself making it active again. This has been changed to what you'll be used to on Turnitin.com/Turnitinuk.com where after the expiry date, the class stays in a read-only mode unless you manually change the dates yourself.

2021 September 23rd

A plugin update is not needed for this change.

Unnecessary pronouns removed from the paper view request email

Turnitin is committed to providing an equitable and inclusionary experience for everyone who uses our products. While this may be a relatively minor change, we are actively looking for areas we can improve in all aspects of Turnitin.

In this change, we found that the Paper View Request email unnecessarily gendered the instructor and did not account for users who do not identify as a binary gender.

Before this change:

This instructor has found a '23%' match to this paper in a paper submitted to his or her 'Natural History' class.

After this change:

The requesting instructor has found a '23%' match to this paper in their 'Natural History' class

2021 August 5th

A plugin update is not needed for this fix.

Use Blackboard Basic with Chromium based browsers

An update to how Chromium based browsers, such as Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge, handles JavaScript dialogs from within iFrames had caused problems with some Blackboard Basic functionality. This problem was experienced by many other webapps. This decision has now been reconsidered and full functionality has been restored.

2021 July 27th

Enhanced synonym swapping detection

One way people try to get around similarity matching is by changing words within plagiarized content to similar synonyms in the hope that we can’t detect these changes. With this release, we will catch more instances of this method of academic misconduct while not increasing false positives.

This enhancement will help to improve the accuracy of the Similarity Report and provide actionable insights instructors can use to promote original writing with their students.

As this is a refinement to how we generate the Similarity Report, you don't have to do anything to enable it. Any Similarity Reports generated from now on will simply be even more accurate than they were before if someone tries to cheat in this way.

2021 March 18th

Thanks for the Feedback!

Thanks for the feedback! We are so pleased that users are keen to work with us to make Turnitin a tool that truly reflects your needs. The user interview sign-up form will be going away for a little while as we start our first phase of testing. Worry not! It will be back later when we should have some exciting things to show you.

You can opt-out our user research at any time by following the 'Unsubscribe' link found in any email we send you.

2021 March 4th

This change doesn't require a plugin update

Turnitin’s similarity scores become more accurate and informative today

Similarity is at the heart of Turnitin and we always look for methods to make our reports more accurate and representative of the wide variety of sources students now have access to. Recently, we’ve refined how our similarity scores are calculated, and we’re excited to share it with our you.

While any changes to individual reports are relatively minor, it continues our commitment to providing Instructors with a reliable and genuine representation of a submission’s similarity.

This release includes:

• Better detection and exclusion accuracy of quotes
• Better prioritization of internet sources (for example prioritizing a match against wikipedia.com instead of randomblog.com)
• Better matching more content across our various databases

As always, all submissions to Turnitin are checked against our latest and most accurate similarity technologies. You may notice a small percentage of previously submitted papers experience minor changes as we continue to innovate.

Any questions? Check out our FAQ.

2021 February 22nd

For this improvement, you must update your plugin.

Irrelevant code tags will no longer show when using Turnitin

A bug had caused some <html> tags to be shown within the plugin while in use. Nothing sensitive was shown and no actual code was displayed. However, these tags could give the impression that there was an issue with the plugin itself. We’ve fixed this bug and the <html> tags will no longer appear.

2021 February 17th

This change does not require a plugin update.

User Feedback Button has been added to Feedback Studio

Let’s talk! We want your help to shape the future of Turnitin. A User Feedback Button has been added to the Similarity Report viewer, allowing you to volunteer yourself to possibly become involved with surveys, one-on-one interviews, or previews of potential new products and features. This button is only visible for instructors.

If you would like to get involved, simply select the gray icon of the waving person on the panel within a Similarity Report. Complete the Sign-Up form to be entered into our database of potential participants. If you change your mind at any time, simply unsubscribe to any participation emails you receive.

We look forward to working with you!

2021 February 11th

Blackboard Learn class assignment title known issue resolved

We have fixed an issue that with our Blackboard integration that occured when users were using multiple tabs.

It is possible to open multiple inboxes from the same course in multiple tabs to help multi-task. There was an issue that affected users when they edited the assignment title in one tab, finding that it would unintentionally alter the title of an assignment found in one of your other open tabs. We have resolved this issue.

2021 January 15th

This change does not require a plugin update.

Digital Receipts reflect the latest draft

When a file is submitted to Turnitin, we record the date and time it reaches us. A bug had caused us to only show the time of the first upload, even when we have received multiple drafts. Now, the date of the digital receipt will reflect the latest draft.

2021 January 6th

This change does not require a plugin update.

Reflection and Revision assignments have been deprecated

To simplify assignment creation, we have removed the ability to create a reflection and revision assignment. This functionality echoed what was already possible with a standard assignment but with added unnecessary steps.

If you used this functionality, worry not! We have prepared a guide on how you can use a standard assignment to retain the similar functionality. By creating a standard assignment in this way, you can tailor the assignment exactly to your assessment needs.

2020 October 13th

These changes require a plugin update.

Dates show correctly in My Grades

When multiple resubmissions are enabled for an assignment, the date of the first submission would appear in the ‘Last Activity’ column. Now, the entry will correctly reflect the date of the latest submission made to the assignment.

Faster saving voice comments

This change does not require a plugin update.

Audio comments will now save to Turnitin significantly more quickly. If you've experienced a delay in comments saving in the past, you'll now notice that the process will only take a matter of a few seconds.

2020 September 23rd

This change does not require a plugin update.

Voice comments now use HTML5

At the end of 2020, Adobe will deprecate their Flash technology in favor of other open standards. As a part of this, all major browsers have also announced their removal of support.

To help ensure an effortless transition between the two technologies, we have made the change earlier than the deadline. As of this release, we now use HTML5 to record voice comments for users. You should notice little to no difference in how you use Turnitin (except things might be just a little faster!).

2020 September 17th

A new 'Paraphrasing' QuickMark set

This change does not require a plugin update.

When referenced correctly, paraphrasing can be perfectly acceptable in a well-written essay. This new QuickMark set will give students an extra helping hand by giving you a simple and clear way of indicating parts of an assignment than might need a little extra attention. You'll find this QuickMark set already available to you in your QuickMark library.

2020 August 4th

This change does not require a plugin update.

All Users. All Integrations.

Check for common integrity Flags in a submission

Flags are a simple way of checking a document for common forms of academic misconduct. A Flag is not necessarily an indicator of a problem. However, if you find one in a submission, we'd recommend focusing your attention there for further review.

There are two forms of Flags available at launch - Replaced Characters and Hidden text. Both are methods touted on social media as ways of circumventing similarity matching.

Replaced Characters will highlight any time an author has used a character that is different from the rest of the document — for example, Swapping a Latin O with a Greek omicron Ο. To the naked eye, these are difficult to spot; now we’ll Flag them for you!

Hidden Text is an attempt to blend text in with a white background. This can lead to an artificially inflated word count or attempts to turn plagiarized text into quoted text, so it is excluded from the Similarity Report.

Check out the full guide!

Certain Turnitin licenses. All Integrations.

View authorship data for a submitted file

Document details are just that - details about a document! All files have metadata that is attached by the computer they use and the software they use. Metadata is simply data about data; in this case, data about the file a user submits.

Depending on file type, this can include fonts used within the paper, the paper size, the author’s name, software used to compose the document, and a bunch of other useful information!

These details can be used to investigate multiple avenues of academic misconduct. For example, multiple fonts used in a document may indicate that content has been copied from the internet. A different author’s name may suggest that a student has used an essay writing service. There can be genuine reasons for these matches, but we’d recommend further investigation when something doesn’t look right

Check out the full guide!

2020 July 1st

Students can now view their submission and instructor feedback without receiving error messages

It was discovered that a small number of students were receiving error messages when attempting to open their submission or view QuickMarks left by their instructor. This has now been resolved and students can view their papers and feedback without issue.

Grading Form bugs have been resolved

Our engineering team have been working on a few intermittent bugs that have been interfering with applying grades to Grading Forms. You may have experienced one of the following:

• Grades may not have updated if they were applied or edited by navigating quickly through submissions using the arrows within Feedback Studio.

• A grade may not have saved if applied before Feedback Studio had loaded fully after opening.

• Selecting Apply to Grade may not have saved the criterion or rubric score.

These have all been resolved.

2020 June 17th

More accurate bibliography exclusions

For English language papers, Turnitin no longer requires the use of beginning and terminating phrases to identify a Bibliography. We now use a machine learning algorithm to understand the paper on a deeper level and dynamically exclude content with much greater accuracy. You should notice far fewer 'false positives' in your Similarity Reports when excluding the bibliography.

Read more on our bibliography exclusion page.

2020 June 10th

Code no longer automatically replaces certain text within Feedback Studio comments

If an instructor were to include an ampersand (&) or the word "prompt" within their inline comment on a student's paper, it would appear as &amp; and < respectively. This has now been resolved and these phrases and symbols can be used as normal.

2020 May 5th

Update your plugin from the Integrations Download page to take advantage of these improvements. We recommend all users to update to this plugin at their earliest convenience.

HTTP connections release correctly for a more responsive Blackboard experience

A bug had caused HTTP connections incorrectly release when connecting to Turnitin. This could cause some slowness and for the Blackboard environment to become unresponsive. This bug has been fixed, and users should notice increased performance, especially during periods of heavy load.

2020 April 24th

This change does not require a plugin update.

Change user preferences without error

A bug had prevented users from being able to successfully edit their User Preferences, resulting in an error saying that 'Your password must be at least 8 characters long'. This bug has now been fixed and users can once again change their user preferences.

 

2020 April 22nd

This change does not require a plugin update.

A new notification before your session expires

Striking a balance between user convenience and account security is important to us. When we expire a session, we only do it to ensure that the person who returns to continue the session is still the person who started it.

We start the clock once we stop receiving any active input from the user. After three hours have elapsed without input, we will show a notification. This notification says that in 10 minutes your session will expire, but that you can use the Extend Session button to keep grading. Once the 10 minutes have passed, you'll have to log in again.

If you are writing a particularly long comment, and know you are about to take a break, navigate outside of the comment box to ensure that it saves.

When we expire a session, all unsaved work is lost. Saving happens automatically when we detect input from the user. However, in some cases, it's possible that the sync didn't happen because the rest of the page wasn't interacted with.

2020 March 5th

Update your plugin from the Integrations Download page to take advantage of these roster sync improvements.

Roster sync now ignores students that have had their accounts disabled

Previously, if a course includes students whose account had been disabled, the instructor would receive a 430 error upon initiating a roster sync to add new students to a Turnitin assignment within the course. We will now log a warning for any disabled users and then proceed to the next user on the list, ensuring there is no disruption to the instructor.

Roster sync will ignore student records that cause errors while being read

Roster sync is unable to read non UTF-8 characters. If a student’s name contains one of these characters, they cannot be added to the class roster by roster sync. Roster sync will now skip any students with non UTF-8 characters. These students will need to be added manually.

Roster sync now updates user details if they have changed

If a first and/or last name has been updated in Blackboard, we are now updating these details in Turnitin when Roster Sync is used.

2020 February 26th

Fixed a known submission issue affecting the Safari browser

We have fixed a known issue that was affecting students attempting to submit to Turnitin through Blackboard Basic on a Safari browser.

Turnitin Feedback Studio Viewer session extension

After listening to customer feedback, we’ve extended the session time for our viewer from one hour to three. This change means instructors will have longer to grade and leave feedback without worrying about being timed out.

2020 February 13th

Rubric manager issues have been resolved

Some users had experienced varying problems with our rubric manger such as not being able to select a rubric, create a new one, and formatting issues. The bug that caused this issue has been fixed and users should be able to use rubrics again as a part of their assignment.

2020 February 6th

We are now fully compliant for the release of Chrome 80

With the release of Chrome 80 fast approaching, we have ensured that users will be able to use our products in Chrome without further disruption. We have made the required changes to our cookies for all of our LMS integrations and Single Sign-On integration Shibboleth to ensure that users will no longer encounter warnings about 3rd party cookies if they are enabled.

2020 February 5th

This change does not require a plugin update.

Star rubrics and grading forms for easy access

Time for a little (early) Spring cleaning! This new feature allows you to star up to five rubrics and grading forms. Starring a rubric or grading form will move it to the top of the Rubric and Form manager for easy access. Starred rubrics and grading forms will stand out amongst all the others in this and future assignments.

Learn how to star a rubric or grading form, remove a rubric or grading form, or how to view the ones you have starred already

2020 January 15th

This change does not require a plugin update.

A new sub-menu for rubrics and grading forms

By default, we provide many rubrics and grading forms to help you get started with your Turnitin account from the very first time you access it. However, as we have a global community of instructors and institutions, it is only natural that not every rubric is relevant to every instructor. To help with the organization of rubrics and grading forms, we’ve moved them to their own sub-menus within the Rubric and Grading Form Manager. This sub-menu is more visible on the screen, making it easier to scroll through and find the one you would like to attach to an assignment. The currently attached rubric or grading form is always visible from the top-level of the menu.

2019 November 8th

Update your plugin from the Integrations Download page to take advantage of these features.

New plugins available

We’ve released new versions of the Blackboard Basic plugin to improve usability.

Anonymous marking issues resolved

We’ve resolved an issue that was affecting the paper title and links in anonymous marking assignments. The paper title is now displayed in the student’s My Grades view in Blackboard and links to the report are active.

2019 October 23rd

This change does not require a plugin update.

Match overview percentage now appears for translated matches in English

A bug had prevented the overall percentage wouldn’t show after clicking the ‘View English Sources (beta)’ button. We're happy to report that this bug has been squished and the match overview percentage will now display as expected.

2019 September 13th

This change does not require a plugin update.

Continued accessibility improvements

Focus order for interactive elements is more logical

When a screen reader looks at a page, it goes through the elements on the page in a set order. We have changed the tab order within our text-only viewer to add a more logical progression through the page.

New ‘Skip to Content’ link as the first navigable element in the text-only viewer

When using the ‘Show highest matches together’ or ‘show matches one at a time’ modes of the text-only viewer, you’ll now find a ‘skip to content’ link as the first element that is reachable when using the tab key. Following this link will jump you to the first part of the similarity report.

2019 September 12th

Grades from anonymous assignments will now appear within the Blackboard grade center

Update your plugin from the Integrations Download page to take advantage of these features.

A bug had prevented grades given to anonymous assignments from appearing in the Blackboard grade center. Grades should now be shown within the grade center once the feedback release date has passed.

Blackboard version number restrictions

In our previous release, we introduced Blackboard version number restrictions to help accommodate changes as Blackboard moves to support OpenJDK 11 in the near future. This previous release only allowed up to a maximum version of 3700.9.0. However, with the recent Blackboard release of 3700.11.0, we have re-released our plugin to now support up to, and including, Blackboard Learn version 3700.98.0.

2019 September 3rd

Fixed a bug causing Turnitin Feedback Studio Viewer to freeze

This change does not require a plugin update.

A pesky bug was found that would cause the Turnitin Feedback Studio Viewer to freeze when creating a comment. We squashed this bug as part of our ongoing commitment to improving the Turnitin Feedback Studio Viewer.

2019 August 30th

This change does not require a plugin update.

New source credibility QMs with linked instructional videos released

We've got some incredible news. We just released a set of source credibility QuickMarks (QMs)! Available in American and British English, these QMs will make it easier for teachers to provide meaningful feedback on how relevant and trustworthy students' chosen sources are, and how credible a source's author seems to be. But wait, there's more. Most of these QMs even include links to a corresponding video aimed at helping students further understand how to evaluate the credibility of any source. We hope these new source credibility QMs are a great source of happiness as you start your weekend.

• QuickMark Set: Source Credibility

 

 

2019 August 27th

Update your plugin from the Integrations Download page to take advantage of these features.

Important Blackboard JDK support update

This building block upgrade supports Java 8, which will continue to be supported by Blackboard up to and including Learn version 3700.9.0. Alongside Blackboard’s recent Community post, we have completed the work to support Java 11. We will soon be releasing a Java 11 equivalent of this same building block upgrade in conjunction with the SaaS continuous deployment of 3800.0.0. Following the move to 3800.0.0, institutions will need to ensure their account is upgraded to the Java 11 version of the building block to continue to have access to Turnitin.

Assignment titles on Assignments page now truncating correctly

In the previous plugin update, the ends of assignment titles on the Assignments page were being truncated with ellipses too early, making it difficult for users to tell assignments apart if their titles started with similar words. This issue has been resolved. Though titles will still truncate if they are too long or the screen size is decreased, users can now hover over the ellipses at the end of the title to see a popup showing the full assignment title.

Grade History now only updated if a grade changes

Previously, every time an instructor refreshed the Grade History page, the most recent row was duplicated and added as a seemingly new entry in the Grade History table, even if the grade had not changed. Understandably, this made it difficult to see when or if a score had been updated. Now, a new entry is only added to the Grade History table if the attempt grade has been changed.

Grades now displayed correctly based on chosen grading schema

Previously, numeric scores were being shown to students even if the instructor had chosen to display grades using a different grading scale or schema (e.g., letter grades, pass/fail, etc.) Though instructors must still enter numeric scores on the Grade Attempt page, the grades will now be shown to students and appear on the Full Grade Center page in the correct format based on the instructor's chosen schema.

Students now able to see work after clicking My Paper

Recently, students were seeing an error message and not given a link to open their work after clicking My Paper in the My Grades area. We're happy to report that the issue is now fixed.

 

 

2019 August 21st

This change is to the Turnitin viewer and does not require a plugin update.

The undo prompt will now disappear as intended

When you delete a QuickMark, we show an undo prompt at the top of the screen to help you recover from any accidental misclicks. This undo prompt will vanish a couple of seconds after your next interaction with the viewer. A bug had made this prompt stay on the screen permanently. Now, deleting a QuickMark should only show the undo prompt for the intended amount of time.

 

 

2019 July 17th

This change does not require a plugin update.

New social studies short answer QuickMarks and rubric available now

Stressful scoring and confusing comments are things of the past. A new rubric and accompanying QuickMarks set for social studies short answer questions were just released! Available in American and British English, these resources will make it easier for teachers to score and provide meaningful feedback on pieces of writing in which students are briefly defending a claim about or explaining a historical topic.

• Rubric & QuickMarks: Social Studies Short Answer

 

 

2019 July 2nd

This change does not require a plugin update.

New science QuickMarks and rubrics available now (except for UK)

Put on your chemistry goggles and fire up the Bunsen burners. Three sets of science-related rubrics and accompanying QuickMarks were just released! Aligned to the concepts of the NGSS and broken out for younger and older students, these resources will make it easier for teachers to score and provide meaningful feedback on both shorter and longer pieces of writing in science and STEM classes. Please note that these Marie-Curie-approved rubrics and QMs are not available in the UK yet, but they will be soon.

• Rubric & QuickMarks: 6th-8th Grade Science Argument (CER)
• Rubric & QuickMarks: 9th-12th Grade Science Argument (CER)
• Rubric & QuickMarks: Science Short Answer

New ELA short answer QuickMarks and rubric available now (except for UK)

Additionally, an English Language Arts (ELA) rubric and QuickMarks set were also released. Both perfect for instructors to use when asking their students to directly, but briefly, defend a claim or explain a topic in an English class or other humanities course. This rubric and QM set is also coming to the UK in the near future.

• Rubric & QuickMarks: ELA Short Answer

 

 

2019 May 24th

This change does not require a plugin update.

Students now alerted when content loads on screen in text-only Turnitin Feedback Studio

Previously, in the text-only view of Turnitin Feedback Studio, students weren't getting visual or auditory indications that new content had been selected or loaded on their screen. Now, when students tab through sections of text, select radio buttons, or choose the "Show previous/next 20 highest matches" link, the selection is outlined or highlighted, and the text itself is read aloud (if the student is utilizing the screen reader).

 

 

2019 May 16th

This change does not require a plugin update.

International Baccalaureate QuickMarks now available

Two sets of International Baccalaureate (IB) QuickMarks were just released in Feedback Studio to help teachers provide specific, actionable feedback aligned to the IB MYP5 Lit and Lang and the IB Extended Essay assessment criteria. Also, for the first time, localized British English versions of these QuickMarks will available in Feedback Studio in the UK.

 

2019 April 16th

Accessibility improvements

This change does not require a plugin update.

We have made some improvements to the labeling of some aspects of our Text-Only report so that they can now be understood by screen readers. The three different modes available in the mode combo box can now all be properly identified as well as the list of preferences that can be edited within the ‘show matches one at a time’ mode. Unsure how to access our Text-Only report? Read our guide to learn how.

 

 

2019 April 10th

This change does not require a plugin update.

Localized links in welcome emails

The welcome email that all new Turnitin users receive now contains localized help links. The language of the welcome email sent out to administrators and instructors is dictated by the notification language selected upon opening the account.

Rubric criteria rounding issue

We’ve resolved a bug with rubric criteria rounding. Certain scenarios would cause the total percentage of the rubric criteria to appear as 99.999’% rather than 100%. This issue has been resolved.

 

 

2019 March 26th

This change does not require a plugin update.

Text-only view will now show your similarity matches correctly

For some papers, opening them in the 'text-only' view caused two different unintended problems when trying to view more details about a match.

• When opening a paper with a match from within your institution, the paper view request form showed, rather than the original source text.

• When opening a paper with a match from an external institution, the paper view request form would show as intended, but the process could not complete.

We have fixed the underlying problem that was causing these two issues, and similarity matches will now display correctly. No further action is required to update any assignments in which you may have noticed this behavior.

 

 

2019 March 7th

This change does not require a plugin update.

PDFs containing no text are now viewable in Feedback Studio

To generate a similarity report, we first need to extract text from a document. With PDFs, we used to only show documents that have extractable text, even when ‘Accept Any File Type’ was selected for the assignment.

Now when viewing a PDF with no text, we will show a viewable version of the PDF that you can use with QuickMarks and our other commenting tools.

 

 

2019 February 22nd

This change does not require a plugin update.

Improved Czech translations? Check!

One of the users using our Czech noticed a few areas where our translations could be improved. We’ve had these pages checked thoroughly and new translations have been added.

Have you noticed a problem in your own language? Get in touch with our support team at tiisupport@turnitin.com and let us know.

M14:11 errors should now be less frequent

In a number of cases, Feedback Studio would fail to correctly process a submission causing it to not show when trying to open the document viewer. This lead to the M14:11 error that some users were experiencing.

The M14:11 error denotes a problem with the processing of a submission when it is displayed. Investigation into this issue has been a top priority for our engineers for a number of weeks and we are happy to report that the underlying issues behind this error have now been resolved.

It is possible that it could still show when there is a genuine problem with a submission. However, for the vast majority of users the document viewer should operate as intended.

 

 

2019 February 12th

New password requirements for all users

We believe firmly in ensuring that our user's accounts are protected and secure. To this end, we have improved the options available to users when they create their passwords and extended the minimum character length to 8 characters.

All passwords created when initially setting up your account, or resetting your password, must be:

• A minimum of 8 characters
• No maximum length
• Must not be a commonly used or simple password (I.e. 'Password' should not be your password!)
• Use any mix of characters!

  We accept lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and any special characters you can think of. Research has shown that setting arbitrary requirements decreases password security. Feel free to make your password as complex as you would like.

  
  

Japanese language submissions will only be flagged with the suspicious paper tooltip when it is relevant

When a paper was submitted entirely in Japanese, we would sometimes show the ‘The service has flagged this paper as having characteristics common to papers submitted in an attempt to artificially lower the similarity index for the Originality Report.’ tooltip on the instructor dashboard when it was not relevant to the paper in question.

We will now only show this tooltip when a paper meets our criteria for a suspicious paper.

 

 

2019 January 29th

This change does not require a plugin update.

Google SSO is now available for our beta users

We made our sign-up form available for account administrators to help us set up their institutions to use Google single sing-on as an authentication method to connect to Turnitin. You'll have received an email from us once your account is ready.

Once you are activated, you'll now be able to use the 'Sign in with Google' button found on the Turnitin login page. Looking for a quick guide to get you started? Check out our Administrator, Instructor, and Student guides.

Haven't had a chance to sign up yet? Read our guide to learn how.

 

 

2019 January 24th

2.7.6

You can now use a plus sign in your email

When using a plus symbol in your email address, such as when using an email alias, our system interpreted this as a 'space' and would result in an error when you tried to access Blackboard Basic. You'll always be our plus one

You can now give a grade of 0 and view it on the view by group page

When viewing submissions via the View Turnitin assignments by group page, a grade of 0 would show as '--'. However, this should only be displayed when there is an 'empty grade' or a grade has not yet been supplied. This column will now show 0 when a grade of 0 has been given.

Fixed a formatting bug experienced on the Create Assignment page

A formatting issue had prevented some users from viewing the full Create Assignment page. We've fixed this bug, and you should now be able to view the page without a problem.

Support for Blackboard Version Q4 2018

 

 

2019 January 23rd

Sign your institution up to use Google SSO from within Turnitin - Administrator Only

This change does not require a plugin update.

We’re excited to share this new feature with you soon, but for your institution to take advantage of Google SSO, we need a little extra information from you. We’ve made the link easier to find by putting it on the settings page for your account. Just look for the 'Register for Google SSO' heading.

If you've already sent us your details, no further action is required. We'll be in touch soon!

 

2019 January 15th

This change does not require a plugin update.

Change the visibility of QuickMark sets

Turnitin comes packed with many QuickMark sets that help to make your life easier. However, we know that not every set will be relevant to every Instructor. You can now change the visibility of QuickMark sets with just a few clicks! Check out our guide to learn how.

 

 

2018 December 19th

You can now upload files inside a Google Drive folder

When using Google Drive upload and switching to the 'folder view', a bug had prevented files within these folders from appearing. We've replaced the 'folder view' with 'My Drive'. This new view will allow you to look through all of the files on your Google Drive, and even search for a specific file.

 

 

2018 November 28th

Translated help links now go to the right place

We made a few changes to our main website this year, which had the unintended side-effect of breaking some of the links within Turnitin Feedback Studio. One you may have noticed was the '(?) Help' link, for any of our translated versions of the site, would land you on our homepage. We've updated these links to take you to the relevant guidance for each language.

 

 

2018 October 30th

New instructors can now see the EULA in the language of their country

We identified an issue that displayed the English EULA to new instructors of non-English speaking countries. Now, all new users will see the EULA in the correct language!

 

Administrators can now change the email address of an unenrolled instructor

Administrators would be greeted with an error message when attempting to change the email address of an unenrolled instructor. An unenrolled instructor is an instructor who hasn't yet completed their user profile or logged into Turnitin. We’ve fixed this issue!

 

 

2018 October 17th

Instructors can no longer join a Turnitin account using a join key

At Turnitin, fair and secure usage of our platform is important to us. We’ve recently investigated the issue of unauthorized access to Turnitin through public sharing of join keys on external websites. Whilst this illegitimate access could not compromise the data of any of our users, it’s only fair that those using our service are doing so legitimately. To prevent uninvited folk from accessing our platform in the future, moving forward, administrators will have two options for adding instructors to Turnitin: uploading a list of instructors or adding instructors one by one. Any join keys currently in public circulation should be removed.

This change will impact instructors access only. Student join keys can still be used to access Turnitin; however, we ask that your institution removes any student join keys from public circulation.

 

 

2018 October 4th

Integration deactivation modal no longer grayed out

We've fixed a cosmetic issue affecting administrators during integration deactivation. Previously, when administrators selected the 'Deactivate' button on the settings of a configured integration, depending on the size of the browser, the confirmation modal could be caught in a grayed out area. This has now been resolved.

 

2018 September 14th

Administrator tabs now display correctly

Previously, when an administrator switched over to the Instructors tab and then moved back to the Accounts tab from the Administrator Homepage, the colors of the tabs would not change. It could be confusing to users unfamiliar with Turnitin as to which tab was currently selected. This problem was purely cosmetic, but we’ve made sure that the right tab will be highlighted when in different sections of Feedback Studio.

 

Instructors can now enroll students with capitals in their email address

In our release on June 5th, we added the ability for uppercase letters to be used when an administrator adds Instructors to an account. We thought this was such a capital idea that we’ve extended the functionality to Instructors adding students to an account too!

 

 

2018 June 27th

Voice comments now save to the correct papers in Google Chrome

Oops! Our Support team picked up reports that a bug was at large in Feedback Studio, causing voice comments to save to the wrong papers in HTML5/Google Chrome, which caused confusion for both instructors and students. Having sprayed the intertubes with a strong mite repellent, all is back to normal.

Disabling online grading no longer disables ETS e-rater®

We identified a bug impacting the use of ETS e-rater® if an administrator disabled online grading in their Turnitin account settings. Now, should an administrator opt to disable online grading from the account features, they needn't worry about any other features being disabled, too. ETS e-rater® will remain active!

 

2018 June 19th

Issues with Chinese and Japanese characters are now resolved

We received a report advising that, when using a rich text editor for Chinese and Japanese, the first letter of a text comment was not handled correctly; this caused some characters to duplicate and others to display in the Latin alphabet. We've fixed this issue!

Instructors can now upload QuickMark sets without error

We found that QuickMark sets failed to upload if the set description contained " " which should be an accepted description. Whilst finding a fix for this issue, we advised users to enter the word null rather than use quotation marks. Thankfully, all QuickMark sets will now upload successfully regardless of their description.

 

2018 June 14th

Increased support for quote exclusions in Feedback Studio!

You asked and we listened! Should you opt to exclude quotations from the Similarity Report, Turnitin (and iThenticate, too!) will now exclude all content between an updated set of quotation marks. This new support aims to provide a more reliable similarity score for our international users - specifically those submitting content in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.

Supported marks

Turnitin will exclude any matches that use the following quotation marks when you opt to exclude quotes from the Similarity Report:

" ... " « ... » » ... « „ … “ 《...》 〈...〉 『... 』

 

Unsupported marks

' ... '

Turnitin will not exclude matches using single quotation marks when you opt to exclude quotes from the Similarity Report:' ... '

 

2018 June 5th

Uppercase letters are now accepted in user email addresses

If an administrator attempted to add an instructor to their account with an email address containing uppercase letters, they encountered an error message; this prevented them from successfully adding some instructors. We've resolved this issue by removing the letter case restriction in email addresses.

2018 May 29th

No more references to 'pushing' PeerMark assignments to class sections

While Turnitin does not allow PeerMark assignments to be pushed to class sections, there were areas within the user interface that provided the option to do so; however, this quickly returned an error when attempted. To prevent any further confusion, we've made a big effort to remove all references to pushing PeerMark assignments to class sections.

Oops! We've corrected anonymous marking tool-tip information

When enabling anonymous marking in the "Create Assignment" page, we advised users that they would be applying a mask to a student's personal information until the due date. However, this was incorrect, as the mask is actually removed on the post date (the date that feedback is released to students). We've correct this information, located behind the anonymous marking tooltip icon .

Administrators can now successfully share QuickMark sets to their account

We received a report that administrators were unable to share a QuickMark set to their account via the Share this set to account checkbox within the QuickMark library, with the checkbox failing to function as expected. This issue has now been resolved!

2018 May 5th

Change the resolution of papers in Feedback Studio

Some of our users reported slow document load times since we upgraded the resolution of papers in Feedback Studio. To combat this, Feedback Studio now offers a "lite" image resolution option for quicker load times. At the bottom of the document viewer, you'll now find a High Resolution toggle which can be switched On and Off at your own convenience. We'll save this preference for any future visits you make to Feedback Studio, too. Say goodbye to delays in accessing submissions!

2018 February 6th

2.7.6

Our iOS app will now work correctly when synching to the Blackboard Grade Centre

For a small number of users, the scores set while using the iOS app would not carry through to the Blackboard Grade Centre when applied. We've worked out what they were unable to talk to each other properly, and you should now be able to use both in concert with one another, as intended!

This change does not require a plugin update.

2018 January 24th

2.7.6

You can now use a plus sign in your email

When using a plus symbol in your email address, such as when using an email alias, our system interpreted this as a 'space' and would result in an error when you tried to access Blackboard Basic. You'll always be our plus one

You can now give a grade of 0 and view it on the view by group page

When viewing submissions via the View Turnitin assignments by group page, a grade of 0 would show as '--'. However, this should only be displayed when there is an 'empty grade' or a grade has not yet been supplied. This column will now show 0 when a grade of 0 has been given.

Fixed a formatting bug experienced on the Create Assignment page

A formatting issue had prevented some users from viewing the full Create Assignment page. We've fixed this bug, and you should now be able to view the page without a problem.

Support for Blackboard Version Q4 2018

2018 January 15th

2.7.5

Change the visibility of QuickMark sets

Turnitin comes packed with many QuickMark sets that help to make your life easier. However, we know that not every set will be relevant to every Instructor. You can now change the visibility of QuickMark sets with just a few clicks! Check out our guide to learn how.

This change does not require a plugin update.

2017 September 14th

2.7.5

We're improving your security

As part of continuing security improvements, we reconsidered how session IDs work with Blackboard Basic. Now, rather than have the session ID in the URL of your browser, we'll create a session-based cookie unique to you. To ensure a smooth and secure user experience in Blackboard Basic, you should always allow third-party cookies when using Blackboard Basic.

This change does not require a plugin update.

2017 June 19th

2.7.5

2017 May 22nd

2.7.4

Hotfix! Instructors can now access all

Following our latest release, we found that each submission to a Blackboard Basic assignment was assigned the same paper ID on the "Modify Grade" page. This resulted in instructors only having access to one paper in Feedback Studio for multiple students. While this issue had absolutely no impact on students or their grades, it was important we rectified this to allow instructors to view and mark student work. Paper IDs are now assigned correctly!

2017 May 16th

2.7.4

Grades automatically update after being applied in Feedback Studio

We've made a welcome change to the grading process! For reassurance that a grade has saved successfully, when an instructor applies a grade in Feedback Studio, then closes the window, this now updates automatically in the Grade Center's Modify Grade page. This change simply saves you from having to refresh the page to see the grade in the "Grade" box.

Feedback files with special characters can be removed successfully

We received reports that, although instructors could upload and access their feedback files successfully, they could not be removed as easily if special characters were included in the filename. The offending special characters included the following:

- ! £ $ % ^ & ( ) _ + @ ~ ' #

We've made a few tweaks to allow special characters in feedback filenames. Feedback files can now be removed at your convenience, regardless of their file name!

When viewing assignments by group, the assignment table is now easier to read

Users adopting Blackboard's new Ultra theme had some trouble viewing assignments by module group. They found that text cells within their table of assignments failed to wrap onto multiple lines (for example, the title column!); this resulted in users being unable to scroll horizontally to view all data in the table. We've made a change so that all table columns now wrap regardless of theme.

Wrap text is used to describe text that moves onto the next line automatically without having to press the enter or return key. We use text wrapping in tables to contain text within a set area, preventing text from being cut off or difficult to read.

We've removed Blackboard's unsupported permissions

We've removed and modified some permissions that had been marked as unsupported in newer versions of Blackboard Learn. These permissions were still being requested as part of the Blackboard Basic plugin, and displaying a warning message to users.

Permissions are required to correctly install, display, retrieve and persist data, as well as properly operate within Blackboard. Therefore, we need to keep these permissions up to date to ensure you can use the Blackboard Basic integration as smoothly as possible.

Anonymous marking is now working as expected

We received several reports that when the 'sync grades' button was selected, this pushed grades to the grade centre immediately, regardless of the fact that anonymous marking was enabled. This was a result of a change in the backend. We've now corrected this issue to ensure that we do not sync anonymized submissions to the grade centre. You must update your version of Blackboard Basic for this fix to take effect!

Assignment due dates are now correctly set in the Grade Centre

When an instructor creates an assignment in Blackboard Basic, an associated column is created in the Grade Centre showing the assignment title. By editing the column information for the assignment, you can opt to set a due date so that it appears in the calendar (among other areas within Blackboard). However, this date wasn't automatically pulling from the Turnitin assignment, allowing manual entry only. Now, it does!

On March 9th 2018, Blackboard provided an update around displaying Turnitin due dates in the Blackboard app. While Turnitin has completed development for this feature, we're waiting for Blackboard to do the same. Once Blackboard's enhancements are complete, Blackboard will pick up calendar items that have due dates for Turnitin. Until then, please sit tight!

We'll remove Grade column(s) if a user deletes Basic assignments prior to recycling them

If an instructor copied a course containing Blackboard Basic assignments, then deleted these assignments without recycling them (by clicking the View link), the Grade column(s) remained unnecessarily. We've managed to fix this small peculiarity; now, any Grade column(s) will disappear if this happens in future.

2017 January 16th

2.7.3

Download class usage statistics

Real-time data is now available as a downloadable .csv file, providing instructors with useful tools to make data-driven decisions within their faculty. Class statistics empower faculties to see class-level trends in submissions and feedback, as well as viewing trends in papers with high similarity scores; this helps to provide targeted instruction to students. Read more.

When on your class homepage you'll find a Statistics tab at the top of the page. Select this tab to start the download.

Best of all, you don't have to update Blackboard basic for the change to take effect!