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Submission to Turnitin – Submitting an

assignment

Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................... - 1 -

Getting Started ................................................................................................................................ - 1 -

Accessing the Turnitin submission .................................................................................................. - 2 -

Submitting your work ..................................................................................................................... - 4 -

File types for submission via Turnitin ............................................................................................. - 6 -

Submission Receipt ......................................................................................................................... - 7 -

Assignment Inbox after submission ................................................................................................ - 8 -

Important things to consider .......................................................................................................... - 9 -

Introduction

The University uses turnitin, a plagiarism

detection and prevention database which

will provide feedback to you on the similarity

of your work compared with a worldwide collection

of resources and previously submitted student work. Whilst Turnitin is used by

the university to detect plagiarism, it is also a valuable learning tool for you. See

Submission to Turnitin – Your Originality Report for more information

(available from the Turnitin page of My.Cumbria.

Getting Started

All Blackboard courses should display a link in the course menu that is called

either Assessment or Assignments. This is where you should find all of the

assessment information for the module and links to your Turnitin assignment

submissions. Please speak to your tutor(s) if this information or your

assignment(s) do not appear here.

This is the only area where assessments can be submitted electronically to your

tutor, through Turnitin. Submissions via email or the Turnitin Test Area are not

accepted.

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Accessing the Turnitin submission

In the Assessment Folder, there may be guidelines or instructions on how to

complete your assignment. You should read these carefully to maximise your

marks.

Any Turnitin assessment point can be readily identified by the Turnitin logo.

Click on the View/Complete link to continue.

Note: You may see more than one Turnitin submission on the Assessments page – ensure you are

selecting the correct one – you may need to scroll down until you see the one you want.

The Turnitin assignment homepage shows the Assignment Inbox for your course

module. Let’s look at it in detail.

Assignment name:

If this is the wrong assignment name, use your browser back button (or click on

Assessment in the side menu) to return to the main assessments folder and find

the correct Turnitin submission.

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Assignment information:

Clicking on this icon will reveal further information about the assignment

including whether resubmission is allowed.

Assignment rubric:

This icon (if available) will link to a rubric which will give specific marking or

performance criteria for your assignment.

The rubric can be used to evaluate student work based on defined criteria and

scales with or without numeric scoring.

Assignment dates:

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Start date: This is the earliest date and time you can submit your assignment.

Due date: This is the latest date and time you can submit your assignment

without penalty, unless extenuating circumstances have been granted.

Post date: This is the date and time that you can begin viewing feedback.

Submit:

When you are ready to Submit your assignment, click on this Submit button. Be

aware that your tutor may only allow a single submission for this assignment.

Check with your tutor if you are unsure.

Submitting your work

Your First name and Last name should be entered by default. Provide a suitable

Specific Submission Title as this will make it easier to identify in future.

Disclaimer

Submission Title

Search for file

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Read the disclaimer, and the Academic Regulations if required, to understand

what is expected of you and how we will do a comparison of your words for the

purposes of plagiarism detection.

Search for the file that you want to upload as your submission.

Although the Dropbox and Google Drive options do work, it is usually quicker

and more efficient to select the Choose from this computer option. This will

mean that you need to have the assignment file on your computer or on a

pendrive (if using a university computer or laptop, you can also search your

OneDrive – it is listed in the files menu as UoC Personal Drive).

Select the file from your computer and click on the Open button.

Back in the main Turnitin window, your file name will appear on the screen,

along with the Upload button. If everything looks good, select to Upload.

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The next screen presents an overview of the file you are uploading. Check this

carefully because if your assessment only allows one attempt, this is your only

opportunity to ensure you are uploading the correct piece of work.

Upload details includes the document name, word count and submission title.

Document preview shows a small preview window displaying your uploaded

work.

Confirm will upload your work into Turnitin. Cancel will allow you to start

again.

File types for submission via Turnitin

Turnitin can be used to check referencing and detect plagiarism in some specific

file types. These are the most common file types from Word and PowerPoint plus

PDF, text, RTF (Rich Text Format) and ODT (Open Document Format).

Turnitin can also, at your tutor’s discretion, accept other file types without

plagiarism detection. These are usually media file types such as MP3 audio, MP4

Upload details Document preview

Upload or Cancel

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video and a number of image formats. Your tutor must agree to receiving

files in this format.

In all cases read your assignment submission requirements carefully and

ensure that you are submitting the correct file type and that the file size does

not exceed 40 Mb.

NOTE: You can only upload a single file to a Turnitin Assignment. If your

submission is composed of a number of files, you will need to join them together

into a single document. See Joining different files into one document for help in

completing this.

Submission Receipt

When your file upload is completed, you will be presented with a Submission

Receipt.

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The Submission Receipt looks a lot like the document overview, that you saw

earlier in the process, but now include a Submission Date and an Assignment

ID.

You will also receive an email from TurnitinUK that includes details of your

submission.

This is confirmation that you have completed the submission and you can now

return to the assignment inbox by clicking on Return to assignment list.

Assignment Inbox after submission

After you have completed the submission and returned to the Assignment Inbox,

you will see that you now have a Similarity Index – See the Turnitin page of

My.Cumbria for information about Interpreting your Turnitin originality

report.

If only one submission is allowed, the Submit button will be greyed out.

Otherwise a blue Resubmit button is available. You can also View the uploaded

assignment and download a copy of this and the Digital Receipt.

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Important things to consider

1. You can only upload a single file to a Turnitin Assignment. If your assignment is in multiple

parts, you will need to join them together into a single document. See Joining different files

into one document for help to do this.

2. Sometimes it looks like Turnitin has frozen or stopped working. This does happen from

time to time and is usually caused at times when lots of universities have assignments due.

Let Turnitin do its thing for a few minutes and if it still appears to be stuck, return to the

Assignment Inbox and see if your work has uploaded anyway. If your assignment is not

there, try a different web browser (we’ve seen some issues with Internet Explorer) and if it

still doesn’t work – contact the IT Service Desk.

3. See Interpreting your Turnitin originality report on the Turnitin page of My.Cumbria for

details of how to view and review your Similarity Index and Originality Report.

4. Your assignment may only allow a single submission. You may want to check this with your

course tutor because if you upload an assessment that needs more work on the referencing,

you may not be able to replace it with the corrected version. You can use the Turnitin Test

Area in Blackboard to see your originality report, prior to uploading to your module

submission area.

5. Submitting your work to the Turnitin Test Area does NOT count as a submission. Your

tutors cannot see your work in the Turnitin Test Area. You MUST submit your work to the

correct module Turnitin Assignment for the assessment to be accepted, viewed and marked.