Turnitin Scheduled Downtime on Saturday, 22 September 2018:
Turnitin will have scheduled downtime for maintenance on Saturday, 22 September from 4pm to Sunday 23 September 12:30am.
All Turnitin services will be unavailable during this period, including Feedback Studio and the Turnitin app for iOS (iPad/iPhone). Please ensure that submission deadlines are not scheduled on this date.
Issues reported on 29th of August: there were intermittent issues with Turnitin overnight and up until 9:40am. During this time users may have been seen a ‘503’ error and would have been prevented from submitting. This is now resolved.
RESOLVED: 18/09/18
Continuing issues affecting the use of the ‘mark without a submission’ function
At present staff cannot mark in Turnitin if a student submission is not present. Until the issue is resolved you will not be able to use Turnitin to mark without a submission. For more information and advice please see this previous post.
Notice: This issue will affect academic staff and administrative staff who use Turnitin to mark when no submission is present.
On Monday (23/07/18) we reported an issue to Turnitin Support where the option to mark without a submission is no longer available. This issue continues to persist and we have requested an update from Turnitin Support.
How this problem manifests:
From the Turnitin submission inbox when you click on the ‘pencil’ icon in order to mark without a submission, you may initially see a message to confirm that you wish to mark without a submission. After the initial confirmation, the Turnitin Feedback Studio window does not open and each subsequent click on the ‘pencil’ results in a grey loading animated GIF and no further action.
We will update this post as soon as we are notified of a solution. In the meantime if you require an alternative means to mark when no submission is present you can use a manual column in the studentcentral grade centre. If you need to use a rubric with a manual column or require assistance with the use of the studentcentral grade centre tools, please contact your Learning Technologies Adviser.
Instructions for attaching feedback to a manual column: https://staff.brighton.ac.uk/is/learningandteaching/Pages/adding-grades-and-feedback-to-a-column.aspx
RESOLVED – Please synchronise your marking and install the new version of the app (released on 14/06) from the iTunes app store to resolve the issue.
Notice: This issue will affect Turnitin for iPad app users who have installed the app update released to the iTunes app store on 30/05/18
We have been alerted to an issue with the Turnitin for iPad where the ‘information’ or ‘i’ area for a specific student paper is no longer showing submission information. This issue has been encountered by more than one user in more than one submission point. Therefore we suspect that this is a broader issue related to the app update released yesterday. The screenshot below shows how this issue will display in the app. Turnitin Support have been notified of this issue.
Recommendation: If you have not yet updated, please do not update the app until further notice. Although no issues with the upload of marks have been reported to us at this time the app should be considered as ‘AT RISK’. As a result we advise that you continue your marking on a computer as a precaution.
For more information about using the app and our recommendations related to Turnitin for iPad updates refer to our guidance page: https://staff.brighton.ac.uk/is/learningandteaching/Pages/Turnitin/Marking-with-the-Turnitin-app.aspx
Update: Please note that issues adding submissions to the Turnitin Feedback Studio app for iPad directly via Safari web browser have been resolved. Please see the previous Turnitin News March Addendum post for details.
We have detected issues with the syncing of grades between Turnitin and the studentcentral grade centre. If you are involved in marking students work using Turnitin, or involved in the administration of grades between Studentcentral and CAMS, please read on.
When a tutor marks and grades a script in Turnitin, this grade is sent to the studentcentral grade centre. It is from here that school offices download grades ready for importing into CAMS. We have identified that this ‘syncing’ of grades between the two systems is not happening automatically as expected.
We advise that all tutors should manually ‘sync grades’ once grading is complete, to ensure the studentcentral grade centre receives the up to date grades. Any subsequent changes to marks in Turnitin should be followed with a ‘sync grades’. This will ensure school offices receive the correct grades for students work.
To manually ‘sync grades’
Update 20/03/18: If you trigger the class access from a desktop/laptop rather than on the iPad itself via Safari/web browser you are asked to enter your email address (twice for confirmation). Turnitin have made it so that the email you receive includes the full access URL, so in the case where you do not have your university email on your device you can copy and paste the URL in order to add that particular module within the Feedback Studio App. For more details, please refer to the release notes.
Update 16/03/18: The ‘Add Class’ button as outlined in the following flowchart (accessed via web browser on Apple iOS) is now fixed – Flowchart
Turnitin released an update for the Feedback Studio for iPad app on Tuesday, 13th of March. This update introduces a key change to the way that you will login to the app, as compared to what we previously recommended at the university. The full notes for this new release of the app can be found at the following link on Turnitin’s site: https://guides.turnitin.com/01_Manuals_and_Guides/Release_Notes/Mobile_Release_Notes . The eLearning team were not given any prior notice of this change to the Feedback Studio for iPad app.
Make sure that you complete any of your current marking and synchonise the app, prior to updating to this new version (v.3.1.2). You can force a synchronisation from the app, by pressing the menu icon on the top-left (three lines) and then pressing the ‘Sync Now’ button [SEE screenshot on the right].
TurnitinUK and Turnitin Feedback Studio for iPad will be unavailable from 16.00 – 10.00 on Saturday, 17th of March, 2018. Please take this maintenance window into account for deadlines.
Turnitin: Intermittent issues with slowness when marking and viewing papers
We have been advised by Turnitin that the service is currently experiencing slowness when marking or viewing papers in the Turnitin Feedback Studio. Based on testing today, this national issue, is also affecting Feedback Studio at the university and in some cases it may take a long time for the paper to load or for quickmarks and comments to be shown or to save. For the time being we advise against continued use of Turnitin for marking until we receive notice from Turnitin that the service has returned to normal.
For more information related to issues with the Feedback Summary (longform comments box), please read the earlier blog post: https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/servicestatuslogs/2018/02/27/turnitin-news-27th-of-february-2018/
Turnitin: Issues entering feedback into the Feedback Summary area of the Turnitin Feedback Studio
As an addendum to yesterday’s communication we are aware of further issues affecting Turnitin Feedback Studio that have been reported. We have informed Turnitin Support and have been working with them to resolve these issues.
Problem: the feedback summary area is limited to 3,000 characters of text rather than the 5,000 that should be allowed in the Turnitin Feedback Studio
The exact limit may vary, some staff have encountered a 1,000 character limit.
Problem: Instructors who use Anonymous marking currently cannot enter any text into the Feedback Summary area of the Turnitin Feedback Studio
Suggested temporary solution: In the meantime if you want to continue writing student feedback we recommend composing it locally on your computer using a plain text software programme. On a PC we suggest “Notepad” which is installed on all Windows computers and on a Mac we suggest “TextEdit”. This will allow you to copy and paste feedback into the Feedback Summary area, once this issue is resolved by Turnitin Support. Microsoft Word is not the best software programme for this as we have discovered that text copied and pasted from Word adds hidden characters which affect also the character quota (5,000 characters)
Issue: The Feedback Studio freezes and does not allow text to be entered in QuickMarks, QuickMark review and/or QuickMarks cannot be deleted
This is caused by slow loading times and can manifest in a variety of ways. If you encounter this issue, elements in the Feedback Studio such as QuickMarks will typically freeze or become unresponsive.
Suggested solution: first you can try refreshing your web browser using the keyboard shortcut ctrl + r (Mac: cmd + r). If that has no effect then the recommendation is to clear your browser cache. Instructions for clearing your cache in Mozilla Firefox can be found here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-clear-firefox-cache
This is the recommendation from Turnitin and should resolve the problem.
Using a right-click or double-clicking with the mouse within the Feedback Studio has also led to freezing and slowness and this should be resolved by a refresh as outlined above. All marking actions in Turnitin are controlled by a single left-click; this is a usability issue that Turnitin still need to address.
Issue: Some students report that they are unable to view their feedback in Turnitin (e.g. on-paper annotations and feedback summary), even though other students may have been able to
This is caused by a synchronisation issue between Turnitin and the studentcentral grade centre and subsequently My Grades, the method by which students access their unratified marks and feedback. This issue will only be encountered by students. When the error arises affected students will be shown an integration error page when they attempt to access their feedback.
Solution: this issue can be addressed by clicking the Sync Grades option above each Turnitin Inbox in a module. This option can be accessed by going to Course Tools, then Turnitin Assignments and the “Sync Grades” link is seen above each inbox in the module. Using the Sync Grades link forces Turnitin to re-synchronise with the grade centre and to pass through any marks and feedback which are not passing between the tools correctly.
We continue to work with Turnitin Support to resolve these issues. In the meantime, if you encounter these issues please contact the service desk who are able to provide further advice.
Notes from Turnitin Academic Integrity Roadshow held at King’s College London on Monday, 5th of February.
Several staff members have reported seeing an error code when using QuickMarks in the Turnitin Feedback Studio. After the error code is dismissed the Feedback Studio window is subsequently frozen. This is an intermittent issue and when it occurs the only way to resolve it is to close the Feedback Studio window and then re-open the submission again from the inbox.
This issue is affecting several universities and the eLearning team have reported the problem to Turnitin Support.
Please note: this issue has been reported in all major web browsers (IE/Firefox/Chrome/Safari) on both PC and Mac. No reports have been received relating to the use of QuickMarks in the Feedback Studio for iPad app.
How the error looks onscreen
While we await the resolution of this issue, if you encounter this problem, please send the following information to the Service Desk via email.