LTI (External Tool) Release Notes

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2024 June 13th

Paper to Digital

Turnitin is excited to release Paper to Digital, a new add-on for our Turnitin Feedback Studio product.

This add-on is currently available for customers using Turnitin Feedback Studio with an LMS LTI 1.3 integration.

Paper to Digital is an application designed for educators that use paper-based assessments in their classrooms. After purchase, when the add-on is enabled by administrators, instructors will have access to a new assignment type, Handwritten Assignments. Selecting this assignment type will launch the Paper to Digital application where instructors will be able to scan and upload paper-based assessments with short-answer work. This assignment type is best used with the following question types: multiple choice, fill in the blank (with text and/or of math notation), and questions that contain open responses, diagrams, chemical equations and structures, or maps.

Once the instructor has uploaded the assignments, they will also complete their grading and feedback work from within the application. The application contains the record of student grades for the assignment and is also where students view their graded submissions.

When grading a Handwritten Assignment, instructors can utilize the following features for an improved and faster grading experience:

• Automatic roster-matching - Once student work has been uploaded, Paper to Digital will detect students’ handwriting and automatically assign submissions to the correct student on the course roster.

• AI-assisted answer grouping - For certain question types, Paper to Digital will find and cluster together all similar answers into Answer Groups for instructors to review and grade for each question. With Answer Groups, instructors grade them once and the grade will automatically apply to all students’ answers in the group.

• Dynamic scoring and feedback - Instructors can create, edit, and grade with flexible scoring criteria (similar to rubrics) and feedback as they grade submissions. This allows for consistent and efficient grading.

We have comprehensive guidance available to help customers learn more about this new assignment type. For administrators looking to enable Handwritten Assignments for their account, check out our guidance for enabling Handwritten Assignments. For instructors looking to understand how to use the Handwritten Assignment type, check out our instructor guidance for Handwritten Assignments. To understand how students review their submissions to the Handwritten Assignment type, check out our student guidance for Handwritten Assignments.

Handwritten Assignments are available for the following languages: English, Turkish, Spanish, German, Dutch, Portuguese, and French.

2024 April 10th

The Blackboard paper lookup tool is now available

Turnitin is pleased to announce the release of our new Blackboard paper lookup tool.

This tool will allow instructors to:

• retrieve submissions from past assignments, including Basic and Direct Building Block and LTI assignments,
• retrieve reports generated for those submissions, including the Similarity Report, Grading Report, and a combination Similarity Report and Grading Report all within their Blackboard Learn environment, and
• access past submissions and associated reports from students who may have dropped the course or are inactive.

Additionally, for institutions that allow access for Blackboard admins to use the “Login As” option, this can be leveraged for admins to access past student submissions and associated reports made to a specific instructor’s course.

Administrators can enable this tool by resyncing their LTI 1.3 registration. Once enabled, instructors will be able to access the tool via Course Tools in Original course view and Books & Tools in Ultra course view. Detailed instructions for how to use the tool are available in our paper lookup tool guidance

While this tool is currently only available for Blackboard LTI 1.3 users, work is underway to bring this tool to other LTI 1.3 integrations.

2023 November 14th

A grade resync feature has been released

We have added an option in the assignment inbox which allows users to Resync grade from the three-dots menu under Options. Users can select this option when a grade from the inbox does not appear in the LMS gradebook. Choosing this option will re-send the grade to the LMS gradebook.

2023 November 8th

Canvas Integration Only

Submission timestamps are no longer changed in Canvas when providing grades

In Canvas LTI 1.3, the "Submitted" date displayed within Canvas should reflect the date and time that students submit to their Turnitin assignment, however previously when instructors graded the assignment, this was being updated to reflect the date and time at which the instructor graded the assignment. This is now working as expected.

2023 November 7th

The order of submissions in the assignment inbox now matches the order in which they appear in the Similarity Report navigation

Previously when instructors reordered submissions within the assignment inbox, that order would not reflect within the Similarity Report navigation. This has now been synchronized, so the order of submissions will match between the assignment inbox and the Similarity Report navigation.

2023 October 30th

Out now: Assignment Copy

Assignment Copy is a feature in all LTI 1.3 integrations that makes it easier for instructors to copy assignment setups from previous courses for use in new courses. To read more about this tool and how to use it, see our Using Assignment Copy guidance.

 

2023 October 2nd

Single quotes can now be excluded from Similarity Reports

We are now able to detect the use of single quotation marks as a part of the quote exclusion setting for the Similarity Report, while continuing to ignore the use of apostrophes. To learn about the other quote formats that are recognized for this exclusion setting, check out our guidance.

 

2023 August 23rd

Updates to the AI writing PDF report

We have added more information to the downloadable PDF version of the AI writing report to now include account, class, and assignment details when available.

 

2023 August 9th

Download the AI writing report

Users now have the ability to download the AI writing report as a PDF file. This new capability allows you to share the AI writing reports with ease, empowering you with a portable format for offline reference and collaboration.

Select the Download option from the top menu to begin the download.

2023 June 30th

Coming soon: Assignment Copy

Assignment Copy is an upcoming feature in all LTI 1.3 integrations that will make it easier for instructors to copy assignment setups from previous courses for use in new courses.

To see a preview of what this tool looks like and how it will work, see our Using Assignment Copy pre-release guidance.

2023 April 4th

AI Writing Detection

Turnitin is excited to release our new AI writing detection capabilities. It is available for all non-student users who can access Similarity Reports, as well as those using them through an integration with a learning management system or Turnitin’s Core API.

AI detection will only work for content submitted in English. It will not process any non-English submissions. As we continue to iterate, we will keep you updated on developments around non-English language support.

When you open a Similarity Report, the new AI writing indicator in the side panel. After a short period of processing, the indicator will display one of three potential states:

	Blue with a percentage between 0 and 100: The submission has processed successfully. The displayed percentage indicates the amount of qualifying text within the submission that Turnitin’s AI writing detection model determines was generated by AI. As noted previously, this percentage is not necessarily the percentage of the entire submission. If text within the submission was not considered long-form prose text, it will not be included. Our testing has found that there is a higher incidence of false positives when the percentage is between 1 and 20. In order to reduce the likelihood of misinterpretation, the AI indicator will display an asterisk (*) for percentages between 1 and 20 to call attention to the fact that the score is less reliable. To explore the results of the AI writing detection capabilities, select the indicator to open the AI writing report. The AI writing report opens in a new tab of the window used to launch the Similarity Report. If you have a pop-up blocker installed, ensure it allows Turnitin pop-ups.
	Gray with no percentage displayed (- -): The AI writing detection indicator is unable to process this submission. This state means that the AI writing report cannot be opened. This can be due to one, or several, of the following reasons: The submission was made before the release of Turnitin’s AI writing detection capabilities. The only way to see the AI writing detection indicator/report on historical submissions is to resubmit them. The submission does not meet the file requirements needed to successfully process it for AI writing detection. In order for a submission to generate an AI writing report and percentage, the submission needs to meet the following requirements: File size must be less than 100 MB File must have at least 300 words of prose text in a long-form writing format File must not exceed 15,000 words File must be written in English Accepted file types: .docx, .pdf, .txt, .rtf
	Error ( ! ): This error means that Turnitin has failed to process the submission. This state means that the AI writing report cannot be opened. Turnitin is constantly working to improve its service, but unfortunately, events like this can occur. Please try again later. If the file meets all the file requirements stated above, and this error state still shows, please get in touch through our support center so we can investigate for you.

The AI writing report contains the overall percentage of prose sentences contained in a long-form writing format within the submitted document that Turnitin’s AI writing detection model determines was generated by AI. These sentences are highlighted in blue on the submission text in the AI writing report.

Prose text contained in long-form writing means individual sentences contained in paragraphs that make up a longer piece of written work, such as an essay, a dissertation, or an article, etc. The model does not reliably detect AI-generated text in the form of non-prose, such as poetry, scripts, or code, nor does it detect short-form/unconventional writing such as bullet points, tables, or annotated bibliographies.

This means that a document containing several different writing types would result in a disparity between the percentage and the highlights.

The percentage, generated by Turnitin’s AI writing detection model, is different and independent from the similarity score, and the AI writing highlights are not visible in the Similarity Report.

How Turnitin has made this determination is complex. To help our users understand Turnitin’s method of detecting AI writing text, we have created an extensive FAQ. Learn more about how Turnitin detects AI-generated writing.

Our AI writing assessment is designed to help educators identify text that might be prepared by a generative AI tool. Our AI writing assessment may not always be accurate (it may misidentify both human and AI-generated text) so it should not be used as the sole basis for adverse actions against a student. It takes further scrutiny and human judgment in conjunction with an organization's application of its specific academic policies to determine whether any academic misconduct has occurred.

2023 February 7th

We've updated the default Class end date to 12 months (365 days)

The default end date when creating a new class is now 12 months (365 days).

Previously, unless instructors set a custom class end date, the system default was 6 months (185 days). This was causing classes to expire sooner than desired.

2023 January 31st

Retain your position in the assignment inbox

We will no longer return you to the top of the page when you have finished viewing a selected submission. Once you have finished viewing a submission, you will be returned to your position in the assignment inbox.

2023 January 24th

We’ve improved our interface to support smaller screen sizes

We have made improvements to our LTI Inbox interface to accommodate for the use of small screen sizes. Students can now scroll to locate their Submit button when using a device with a small screen.

 

2022 October 25th

We’ve made improvements to how the Assignment Inbox displays items

The Assignment Inbox now displays up to 100 rows before adding the ability to flip through by page.

Previously, a very small amount of rows were appearing on some LMSes.

2022 October 12th

We've made improvements to the the Assignment Inbox for large class sizes

We have resolved an issue that caused long load times in the LTI Assignment Inbox for courses containing a high volume of students.

2022 October 5th

Administrators will now receive a weekly wrap-up email for Paper Deletion requests

Until now, each paper deletion request an administrator receives would be sent as a separate email. However, based on user feedback, we’ve changed this email to only be sent once a week.

We have seen the benefit of identifying large numbers of requests via our efforts to tackle misuse. While receiving multiple emails was not ideal for these institutions, they were able to identify cases of misuse where their accounts had been compromised far more easily than ever before.

As such, we have designed this new email to be the best of both worlds. While it is only sent once a week, Sundays, it will contain both the total number of pending requests and the number of new requests that have been added to the total since the last email.

To be clear, administrators can process a request at any time after it has been made. They will also continue to receive instant in-product messages for each request. This change simply consolidates their multiple emails into something that is far more actionable and insightful.

Accounts that have chosen to a designated email address to receive paper deletion requests will now receive this email.

2022 September 23rd

We've made improvements to the paper deletion process

Previously, when a paper has been permanently deleted, the notification did not provide updated information. We've added new notification text with detailed information about the status of the deletion request.

Previously, users could re-request a paper deletion after the request has been rejected. This has been corrected and is no longer possible.

2022 September 14th

We've added a warning when instructors grade an assignment early while resubmissions are enabled

When assignments are set up to allow for resubmissions and an instructor grades submissions prior to the due date, any further resubmissions will delete existing feedback and grades from TFS.

A warning pop-up has been added to inform instructors of this behavior when attempting to grade an assignment with resubmissions enabled.

2022 September 7th

We’ve fixed an issue impacting grading of resubmissions with anonymous marking enabled

We have fixed an issue that prevented the previous submission’s grade from clearing when a student would resubmit an assignment with anonymous marking enabled.

2022 August 30th

We've made some changes to the Analytics Dashboard

We have fixed an issue where the date and time of assignments did not reflect accurately in the Analytics Dashboard. Please note the times in the ‘Submissions Timeline’ are rounded to the nearest hour.

We have fixed an issue that would display incorrect grading calculations when displaying custom rubrics in the Online Grading Report section of the Analytics Dashboard.

We have also improved the display of information in this area. The bar graph no longer shows up when there are no assignments, and the date formats have been made consistent.

Instructors can now save "allow any file type" as default in Assignment Settings

We have resolved an issue that was preventing instructors from saving assignments with the “allow any file type” setting in the Assignment Settings area for future use. Previously, the administrator account’s default settings were overriding this instructor setting in the LTI assignment setup.

2022 June 7th

Paper deletion requests can now be made from within the LTI inbox

Building on the global release of paper deletion requests on April 13th, users can now directly request a paper deletion from within the LTI inbox.

For Administrators, the experience will continue to be exactly the same by managing requests via turnitin.com/turnitinuk.com. Check out the admin guide to learn more.

For Instructors, we’ve replicated the workflow from the core experience, but made it available in the LTI inbox itself. Check out the instructor guide to learn more.

2022 January 28th

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

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 11th

Templates can now be excluded from Similarity Reports

Templates can now be entered during assignment creation so that they have no influence on similarity scores and will be automatically excluded from student Similarity Reports. To find out more, check out our guidance.

2021 December 16th

Students will no longer duplicate when you submit on their behalf

When you submit on behalf of a student, a duplicate student would sometimes appear within the submission inbox. This made it unclear if there had been a successful submission. You could only clear this student by refreshing the inbox or waiting for the cache to clear. The extra student was purely a visual bug and had no impact on class statistics.

This bug has now been fixed and the inbox will refresh automatically following any submissions.

2021 September 23rd

Online Grading Report will load classes with more than 100 submissions

A bug would cause the Online Grading Report to get stuck in a loading state when a class had more than 100 submissions. We've fixed this bug and this unintended limit should no longer prevent the report from loading.

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 September 16th

Introducing the Learning Analytics Dashboard

Available from within the LTI Assignment Inbox, these summary statistics show how students have engaged with their assignment and gives instructors actionable insights into the similarity found within an assignment. With a visual view of student progress, it can allow instructors to reflect on what is working within their class and how to adjust their strategy to meet learning aims. Read more about the features of the Learning Analytics Dashboard.

Also as a part of this release, the Online Grading Report has moved from its own tab to be included with the other statistics in the Analytics tab. All functionality is the same with the only difference being that reports are now downloaded via the Export Data button with the rest of the data about the assignment. Learn more about the online grading report, or how to download it.

Flags in the LTI Assignment Inbox

We’ve added the ability to view which documents have document Flags in them directly from the LTI Assignment Inbox. Now, you can focus your investigations into problem papers without having to look through all of the submissions in an assignment.

2021 August 4th

Download the Turnitin Digital Receipt directly from your confirmation message

Digital Receipts can now be directly downloaded from within the confirmation message shown when a file has been submitted successfully. Don't worry if you forget to download it straight away; use the receipt icon to download it anytime after submission.

2021 May 13th

Removal of phantom 'Student choice of submission' option

Administrators can configure the web-based version of Turnitin to allow students to choose if their submissions are added to the Turnitin database. However, this features has never been an option within our LTI integration. We've removed a phantom setting that would show this option despite it not being possible to use as a part of an assignment.

2021 March 4th

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 March 3rd

Manually refresh LTI Inbox

When using Roster Sync, we check for new users every hour. However, if a student is added to a class during that time, they wouldn’t appear in the inbox until the next time we checked. We’ve added a refresh button to the LTI Inbox that can be used to get us to check when you know there should be an update.

2021 February 17th

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 January 15th

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 February 5th

Successful submission notifications in Blackboard

We have fixed an issue that would, in a rare situation, prevent submission notifications being sent from Turnitin to Blackboard. This could result in some submissions statuses being incorrect in the Blackboard Grade Center.

2021 January 15th

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.

2020 November 23rd

A more responsive student inbox

Following on from our October 21st release, we have made improvements to the student inbox.

• The position and spacing for various elements has been adjusted to best take advantage of the available space on smaller screen sizes.
• The student submission modal will correctly display on smaller screen sizes and adjust to fill the available space.
• The summary tab has been removed. All content is now available via the expandable area of the dashboard.

2020 November 11th

LTI 1.3 registration account selection is now scrollable

If the account you are configuring for LTI 1.3 has large number of sub-accounts, you can now scroll down the list to find the one relevant for your configuration.

Students can view their instructor PeerMark grades

A bug had prevented instructor PeerMark grades from showing to students after the feedback-release date has passed. Now they'll receive this grade along with any others from students who have graded their assignment.

A new tooltip for the online grading pencil icon

We've added a new tooltip to the online grading pencil icon. While this may seem like a minor fix, small adjustments like this help us to support all our users by fully explaining what they can expect on interacting with a part of the interface. This is especially true for those who primarily use a screen reader or keyboard navigation.

 

2020 October 29th

Grading forms pass the correct scores to the Online Grading Report

When using a grading form to grade an assignment, any scores would appear as 0 when viewed as a part of the Online Grading Report. This bug has been corrected and the correct scores will transfer to the report when it is shown.

2020 October 21st

A more responsive and accessible LTI inbox

LTI allows for Turnitin to be used in a wide variety of different situations with the same experience for all our users. We’ve made some improvements to how the inbox reacts to smaller screen sizes and viewports to help ensure you can use Turnitin with the same level of care as the full size inbox.

• Tool-tips are now accessible via keyboard navigation
• Download options are now combined into one button. The button is dynamic, and contextually displays the correct option based on how many submissions are selected.
• Tool-tips are now visible on hover, rather than having to interact with the element.
• PeerMark ‘setup’ and ‘review’ tabs have been combined into a single tab. A drop-down list lets you pick which one is most relevant.
• Search fields will correctly display on smaller screen sizes and adjust to the available space.
• The position and spacing for various elements has been adjusted to best take advantage of the available space on smaller screen sizes

2020 October 13th

Faster saving voice comments

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

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

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 September 10th

ETS^® e-rater^® 'Style' category can be toggled

When changing the ETS^® e-rater^® categories for an assignment, a bug had prevented the 'Style' category from toggling on or off. After saving, the category would remain switched on for the assignment. Now, the 'Style' category can be changed like any other.

Tool-tips are accessible via keyboard navigation

We provide several tool-tips to help users tailor their Turnitin experience to them. These tool-tips include contextual information that goes into more detail about how a feature works. We've now made these tool-tips accessible using a keyboard, ensuring that all our users are able to take advantage of this extra information.

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 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 April 22nd

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 3rd

Online Grading report now only returns associated QuickMarks

We received reports that some users of the Online Grading report would be shown QuickMark sets that were not associated with their individual user account. This has now been resolved to ensure the report will only show data relevant to the instructor using it.

2020 February 26th

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 20th

Online grading reports are now available directly within the LTI assignment inbox

Our online grading tools allow you to give meaningful feedback to students on any kind of assignment. Until now, you could only access data about the impact access to these tools was having on your assignments by switching to the turnitin.com website.

Online grading reports are now available directly within the LTI assignment inbox. If you would like to investigate this data on a deeper level, each report can easily be exported from the inbox too.

For each student attached to the class, you can now view data about the feedback you have supplied them, e-rater marks that have been automatically generated, and the number of marks that have been associated with a rubric or grading from criterion.

Check out how to view usage statistics for your assignment, or learn how to export the Online Grading report.

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

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 December 5th

D2L standard LTI (not V2) Only

Instructor preferences can be saved when using Deep Linking

When creating a content item, you'll now find the option to 'Save these Settings for future use'. If you select this option, any settings you have chosen will be set as defaults the next time create an assignment.

The following settings will not save when using this option

• Enable Translated Matching
• Enable grammar checking using ETS® e-rater® technology
• Allow submission for any file type

2019 November 6th

Unsupported languages will now default to English

When an unsupported language is set as the chosen language within an LMS, we will default the Turnitin interface to English. A bug had changed this behavior for users who have Icelandic set as their LMS language by showing Swedish in the Turnitin interface. All languages will now default to English when an unsupported language is used.

2019 October 23rd

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.

Sakai Integration Only

Grades will pass back to the gradebook correctly

There was a bug in the Sakai code-base preventing grades from Turnitin Feedback Studio from being passed back and displayed in the Sakai gradebook. This is issue has now been fixed. As soon as the first submission to an LTI assignment is graded, a gradebook column is created and the grade is automatically passed back.

2019 October 2nd

LTI 1.3 now available on Blackboard!

Blackboard LTI customers who are using Blackboard version 3700.9.0 and above are now able to use LTI 1.3. This version of LTI allows for a much easier integration setup and is simple to migrate to from LTI 1.1.

One of the main new features for instructors is that they will now have access to Blackboard’s student groups feature alongside Turnitin. This version has also addressed many of the known issues that were raised with the Blackboard LTI 1.1 integration.

Check out the administrator guidance to see what's new as well as the list of resolved issues with Blackboard LTI 1.3

2019 September 18th

Assignment titles will lock correctly

A bug had made it possible to edit an assignment title after creation. This was is not intended behaviour as editing a title at this point can cause further problems. As expected, assignment titles will now be greyed out and are unable to be edited.

2019 September 13th

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.

September 3rd 2019

Blackboard LTI assignment creation bug

We’ve fixed a bug that was causing new LTI assignments created through Blackboard with deep linking to fail with an error message.

Streamlined LTI assignment launch

Now, when an instructor launches into a new assignment for the first time they will be taken directly to the settings page so they can configure the assignment before students start submitting. All launches after that will take them to the inbox.

We hope that this change streamlines your assignment creation process!

If your assignment has been created with deep linking you will be launched into the inbox.

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 21st

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 August 2nd

Important event notifications

In your Instructor assignment inbox, you'll now find a section titled Notifications. We only use this section to notify you about any upcoming Turnitin maintenance periods or to provide you with your bulk download links when they are ready. Want to learn more? Check out the guide.

2019 July 25th

Rubric descriptions are now available on assignment creation

If a rubric has a description attached to it, we'll now show it on the assignment creation screen to help you pick out the perfect rubric to complement your assignment.

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 June 12th

Keyboard focus is now indicated visually

As a part of our continuing accessibility improvements, we’ve added a visual indicator of where the current focus of the keyboard is placed. The focused element will now be wrapped in a gray box.

Optional settings now have more titles

We’ve added a couple of extra titles to the assignment creation screen to make it clearer when different settings are grouped.

 

2019 June 5th

Color contrast improved on buttons and links

For students using our Turnitin external tool, we've also strengthened the visual contrast on the Submit to Turnitin button, the Preview Submission button, and various header navigation links to make them easier to read. Here's to moving one step closer to making our products more accessible for all students, whatever their needs may be.

Messaging to students clarified when session times out

Along with the various accessibility improvements, we've also updated the error message students get when their session times out. Rather than seeing a general error message, students using Turnitin's external tool will now see that their window has been closed to due inactivity.

2019 May 28th

Assignments using deep linking are now activated by default

When using an assignment with deeplinking it was required for the instructor to first open the assignment before a student would be able to access it. Now, no extra action is required on behalf of the instructor before the assignment becomes active.

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).

Support wizard link updated in LTI inbox for UK instructors

Previously, the link to the support wizard was redirecting instructors to the login page. This issue has been resolved. Now, instructors using LTI in the UK can be off to see the (support) wizard from their inboxes.

 

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 May 8th

2019 April 16th

2019 April 4th

Text-based submissions can now be greater than 10,000 characters in length

We’ve resolved a known issue with our text submission for Canvas Plagiarism Framework and LTI. When using our 'text' or, as you may also know it, 'copy and paste' upload, a limit on this field had restricted the number of characters you could send to Turnitin to 10,000 characters. This issue has been resolved.

PeerMark Grades will now show correctly in the assignment inbox

When an LTI instructor applied a grade to their student's Peer review, it would display as a percentage in the assignment inbox. This would incorrectly portray a grade of 49/50 as 49%. This has now been resolved and now only a numerical digit appears in the assignment inbox.

2019 March 19th

Rubrics are no longer visible if Online Grading is disabled

A bug had allowed students to view an attached rubric via the summary tab despite Online Grading being disabled. Now when creating an assignment, the option of attaching a rubric has been removed if Online Grading has been disabled in the Turnitin account settings.

2019 March 14th

Anonymous marking will now be disabled by default

When creating a class using Content Item, such as you can in Blackboard Ultra, anonymous marking options were being applied inconsistently. For example, it was possible that disabling the setting would actually enable it for the account. Now, on assignment creation anonymous marking will be disabled by default unless we are asked otherwise.

2019 February 22nd

Problems with One Drive upload have been resolved

A bug had prevented users from uploading files via One Drive. We’ve found the root cause of this issue and you can now use this method to upload again. Not sure how? Check out our student guide.

2019 January 15th

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 27th

You can use Microsoft OneDrive to upload files again

A bug had prevented a small number of users from using Microsoft OneDrive to upload files. The root cause for this problem has been identified and fixed.

2018 December 18th

PeerMark Improvements

We wanted to kick the season of giving off in style, and what better way is there to do so than with some PeerMark improvements! After talking to users this year, we've tailored the improvements we've made to the things that will most improve the lives of our instructors and their students.

A prettier interface - We've changed how buttons and a few other elements look. This change should make it clearer to students where they need to click to start their reviews.

A new flashing notification icon - When a student has a PeerMark Review to write, we will now show a flashing red icon in the LTI navigation to let them know. This icon will go away once all reviews have been completed.

A new message when the start date hasn't passed - When a student tries to access a PeerMark assignment when the start date hasn't passed yet, we'll now show them a message telling them when they can come back to get started.

We've made accessing completed reviews much easier - A Received Feedback button can now be found on the PeerMark Reviews screen. This button allows students to immediately open any reviews they've received by their classmates.

Would you like to learn more? Students | Instructors

2018 December 5th

Anonymous marking now supported!

Anonymous marking is now supported for Canvas users of our LTI integration!

This means that the feature only needs to be selected from within the Canvas assignment settings, which will then automatically apply to the Turnitin assignment settings.

Make sure you configure anonymous marking as a customer extension, and then check out our guidance for help getting anonymous marking set up in your main account.

Anonymous marking differs in our Canvas integrations. Anonymous marking in Turnitin is a permanent setting. If you disable anonymous marking on an assignment following a student submission, you will be unable to reactivate it. This differs from the Canvas workflow. In the Canvas Plagiarism Framework and Canvas LTI integration you will be able to reactivate the anonymous feature even after a student has submitted. If you reactivate anonymous grading in Canvas after a submission has been made, the identify of the student will remain visible within the Turnitin viewer.

2018 November 27th

e-rater settings are now viewable

Even when enabled for an account via our website, a bug had prevented e-rater showing as a configurable option when editing the settings for an LTI assignment. This bug was limited to accounts that had disabled our Online Grading (grademark) features. We've fixed this bug, and you'll not be able to edit e-rater settings even when you are not using Online Grading with an assignment.

2018 August 14th

Other instructors' rubrics no longer appear in assignment settings

A bug has been causing other instructors' rubrics to appear in the list of available rubrics; selecting one of these triggered an error message. We will now only display other instructors' rubrics when they are attached to the assignment. We've also made a quick fix to ensure that rubrics no longer duplicate when adding a new rubric.

2018 July 31st

We now revert to English if we detect Norwegian in the assignment inbox

In the instance that we don't support your language, our default behavior is to revert to English. If we encountered the Norwegian language, however, we were strangely reverting to Swedish instead... Oops! We've fixed this little anomaly.

2018 July 5th

More updates to the LTI grade report

Hey instructors! A little bird told us that you requested some changes to the LTI grade report. We're pleased to introduce a "Student Viewed" column to the report, which provides a timestamp detailing the time that your students viewed your feedback. You may also notice that all dates and times in the report are now displayed in your local time zone... because that's just common sense!

2018 June 27th

Students in Canvas can now successfully submit any files to Turnitin

We received reports from a number of students using Canvas that they were unable to upload a zip file to Turnitin when their assignment was configured to accept any file type. We've resolved this issue; students can now submit zip files (and any other files!) without encountering any problems.

2018 June 19th

New additions and updates to the LTI grade report!

Not only have we changed the name of the "Overlap" column to "Similarity score", providing you with more familiar terminology, but we've also added a word count column to the grade report! Looking for the grade report? Find it here.

2018 June 12th

Preview your uploaded paper in full before submitting!

Yes, that's right! A sparkly and much-needed Preview Submission button is now available for those last-minute moments of uncertainty, right before you submit your paper! With access to a full preview of your upload, you can now find complete peace of mind, knowing that you're sending the correct file to Turnitin. We've got you covered.

Improvements to error messaging in Turnitin LTI

We've made changes to some error messages to make them easier to understand and therefore easier for you to resolve and continue your academic journey...

1. If a user attempts to access an LTI assignment without a valid email address being set in their LMS, we now advise that they must set their email address before they can launch into the assignment:

   Sorry, we could not process your request

   If a user attempts to access an LTI assignment without a valid email address being set in their LMS, we now advise that they must set their email address before they can launch into the assignment:

2. If a student attempts to access an LTI assignment before their instructor has managed to set it up, we've made it clear that their instructor must configure the assignment before they can launch into it:

   Sorry, we could not process your request

   If a student attempts to access an LTI assignment before their instructor has managed to set it up, we've made it clear that their instructor must configure the assignment before they can launch into it: