Instructional Web Development Center

Turnitin - Frequently Asked Questions


How can I share access with a TA or another instructor?

WebCT only allows one instructor per class. There are two ways around this:

  • Create a Master Class with Sections. This allows you and a TA to review submissions from students. Create one master class, and add as many sections as you have TAs. This allows for at most 2 people to see the papers submitted for any group of students.
  • Use a TurnItIn assignment in WebCT. WebCT allows for as many instructors and TAs as you like to be added to the class. Anyone with access to the Build tab will be able to create assignments, and anyone with access to the Teach tab will be able to review and grade submitted papers.

A student needs to re-submit an assignment: How can I delete an assignment from TurnItIn?

Unfortunately it's not possible to remove a paper from the database, but TurnItIn accommodates such papers by allowing you to create a "Revision Assignment". From the Penn State TurnItIn FAQ:

Q: Can students submit multiple drafts of an assignment without having the drafts compared against their previous submission(s)?
A: If your students have already submitted their papers to an assignment and you want to let them submit another draft, you can create a revision assignment. When a student submits a paper to a revision assignment, the submission is not compared against the student's previous submissions.For additional information on revision assignments, see pages 19 to 20 of the Instructor User Manual.

To create a revision assignment:
Click the create a new assignment link. On the assignment creation page, choose revision assignment from the create a new: pulldown menu at the top of the assignment form. Choose a paper assignment using the based on paper assignment pulldown menu on the revision form. The revision will be added to the assignment you have selected. Click the submit button to add the revision to your class homepage.

Alternatively, when you are looking at the Originality Report for a paper, you can easily remove from the report any source that you know is acceptable -- in this case, the student's previous submission of the paper. Just click the X to the right of the submission that you know is acceptable:

In the third frame, titled 'Turnitin Originality Report Source List', the link to exclude a source comes before its number and description. The link's sole content is an image called /new_dynamic/images/newreport_ex.gif


I need to test one student's paper -- how can I do this?

Even to test one paper, you need to set up a class and create an assignment. Once you've done that, click the Submit button next to the assignment Inbox.

When you are viewing your class's assignments, the 'submit paper' link is the second link after the name of your assignment.

After you submit it, the paper will be listed in the Inbox. After about 10-20 minutes, the Originality Report will be added.

Note that the paper you submit must have been typed, or processed with an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) program to produce typed text. Scanned images are unusable by TurnItIn.com

If you plan to submit a paper you are scanning, you can use Adobe Acrobat's built-in OCR to convert them to text that TurnItIn can read. Acrobat Standard and Professional are available electronically from Software Distribution, and physical copies are available from the bookstore.