On August 15, Penn State will roll out an updated report interface to the Turnitin plagiarism detection and prevention tool. The new interface, called Feedback Studio, will allow instructors to view the Originality Report and GradeMark results at the same time, as well as to toggle filters for the Originality Report off and on. The report tools are also rearranged to be all displayed vertically. See sample images below.

Instructors wanting a preview of the interface can visit Turnitin’s Feedback Studio page and click the option to Try the Demo. A frequently asked questions page has also been posted at http://turnitin.psu.edu/studio/.

Additional questions and comments about the new Feedback Studio can be sent to turnitin@psu.edu.

Sample Images

Combined Feedback

In the Feedback Studio you can see GradeMark comments (blue), found matches (red) and ETS e-Rater grammar check comments (purple) in one screen.

Vertical tool layout

In the Feedback Studio interface, the GradeMark and originality Report tools are integrated in one vertical toolbar. New features include the ability to view the Originality Report with different filters turned off and on.

Toolbar and Document

Turnitin document in Feedback Studio with vertical toolbar.

According to the GURU General Retention Schedule (formerly “Appendix 18”), course grade books should be retained for five (5) years – see the Student Records section for details on the policy.

If you used the Turnitin Grademark tool to assign grades for writing assignments, we strongly recommend you ensure that you maintain a local copy of the assignment grades. One option is to export the grade book from Turnitin as an Excel file. Alternatively, grades may also be copied into an Excel file or into an LMS such as Canvas or ANGEL.

Instructors logging into Turnitin may see a notice that the account will expire in less than 30 days. Penn State is currently finalizing a contract extension and anticipates that the service will continue after June 30. We apologize for any concern or confusion this notice generated in the interface may cause.

Turnitin services will be mostly unavailable during a scheduled maintenance period on Saturday, March 5, 2016 from 10 AM to 1PM EST (or 7 AM to 11 AM U.S. Pacific Time – event details and time converter are at Time and Date com).

This is the Saturday before Spring Break, but instructors should plan their deadlines and grading of Turnitin assignments around this maintenance window.

Progress can be monitored at the Turnitin Status Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/turnitinstatus.

Instructors needing to add TAs to Turnitin can now use the Turnitin Request form at https://sites.psu.edu/tiiadmin/tarequest/. This form must be completed by the instructor of record. We hope this form will streamline the process for adding TAs.

Instructors are advised to NOT add TAs until the TA accounts are active. This should ensure access for new TAs.

FYI – An ongoing bug is still affecting some TA accounts causing them to be locked. If this occurs, please contact the IT Service Desk.

A bug has been recently identified which causes some instructor accounts to be locked even if the person had received instructor or TA access in a previous semester. Usually this person will see a Server Error from a URL at “turnitin.com” or that person may see a message that they do not have instructor access.

If this happens, please contact turnitin@psu.edu immediately and provide information about your current course (including instructor of record). The Turnitin admin will be able to unlock the account once the information is confirmed.

We apologize for the inconvenience. The bug has been submitted to Turnitin.com and they hope to release a fix in the near future.

Several instructors have identified an issue that students attempting to access and review a paper in PeerMark may not able to see any papers to review. Unfortunately, the distribution is controlled by an algorithm which may stop assigning papers if there are not enough potential papers in its queue.

One suggestion is to ask students to wait a few hours until more reviews may become available.

Another strategy is to not open a PeerMark assignment until AFTER the original paper submission deadline. Instructors can also exclude students who did not submit a paper from the PeerReview portion of the assignment.

This is a known issue which will hopefully addressed in an upcoming upgrade.

Turnitin services will be mostly unavailable during a scheduled maintenance period on Saturday, September 19, 2015 from 10 AM to 1PM EDT (or 7 AM to 11 AM U.S. Pacific Time – event details and time converter are at Time and Date com).

Instructors should plan their deadlines and grading of Turnitin assignments around this maintenance window.

Turnitin services will be mostly unavailable during a scheduled maintenance period on Saturday, August 15, 2015 from 11 AM to 2PM EDT (or 7 AM to 11 AM U.S. Pacific Time – event details and time converter are at http://go.turnitin.com/e/45292/o5gahfa/3vbcwk/441059530).

Please note that at some campuses, including University Park, this is the DAY AFTER final exams on Fri. Aug 14.

Instructors should plan their summer grading of Turnitin assignments to not happen between 11AM – 2PM on Sat Aug 15.