Setting Up TurnItIn in Cobra Learning

TurnItIn is an effective online technology for evaluating student learning.  Check students' work for potential plagiarism by comparing it against the world's largest database.  Student work is instantly checked and an originality report is generated in a matter of seconds.  Color-coded sources correspond to matching passages in the student work and generate a simple Similarity Index score.

NOTE: It is NOT advisable to create an open dropbox in your course for students to check other coursework.  By submitting the assignments to YOUR course prior to submission to their other courses, it will flag their submission to their other courses at 100%, which can impact their grades.  We understand that you believe this may be a practice that can be helpful to students, but it is not.  They have to explain to their other instructors what has happened and why their submission is flagged.  Please advise your students to talk with their instructors to have draft Turnitin dropboxes added to their courses.

Getting Started

1. Create a new folder (dropbox) in Cobra Learning
2. Continue to set up your dropbox folder as you typically would.  (You can select Save at this point, to save your regular dropbox settings).
3. Click to expand the Evaluation & Feedback tab.
4. Click the Manage Turnitin link.

5. Check the box to Enable Grademark for this folder. 

   NOTE: this will automatically check Enable Originality Check as we have set it up to enable both at the same time.

6. Display: If you want students to see the Turnitin report, check this box.  
7. Frequency: Automatic will submit student papers for originality checking immediately upon submission. Identify means that you will manually go to the dropbox and select the submission to be sent for review.  
8. You can select Save if you choose not to set any additional settings.

9. Select More Options in Turnitin to review additional settings. (See section below).

More Options in Turnitin

1. Title: this will be drawn from the dropbox title in Cobra.
2. Max Grade:  This will carry over from your dropbox settings in Cobra.
3. Click the Optional Settings link, to continue with the advanced settings.

4. Submissions to this assignment will be stored in: Turnitin's standard repository or do not store the submitted papers, meaning only an initial check is run on the original submission.
5. Allow submission of any file type: If yes, the originality report will be generated where possible.  Typically, some documents may not produce a report.  Selecting "no" will only allow files that are compatible with Turnitin (i.e. Word, PDF)
6. Allow late submissions: You may set this either way, but the Cobra dropbox settings will override this. If you do not allow late submissions in the dropbox, then they will not be able to do so in Turnitin. If you have late submissions allowed on Cobra and set this to "no", then students will be able to submit to Cobra, but they will not be submitted to Turnitin.
7. Enable grammar checking using ETS e-rater technology: When this setting is enabled, grademarking will include grammar checking as well as spellcheck and other writing traits.  Below this setting is the options you have for the e-rater technology, such as which dictionary to use and what categories to be checked.  
8. Attach a rubric to this assignment: This allows a Turnitin-based rubric to be added to the assignment and used for grademarking. A rubric created in Cobra will NOT transfer into Turnitin. The rubric must be created in Turnitin.
9. Compare submitted papers against the following sources: By default, the entire Turnitin database will be selected. This is the best way to ensure the most accurate report.
10. Originality Report generation and resubmissions: this allows you to set whether the reports are generated immediately or held until the due date; and whether resubmissions are allowed to be submitted through Turnitin. Again, this will feed from whether you allow resubmissions in the dropbox in Cobra as well.
11. Allow students to view Originality Reports: This will automatically be set, if you set it in the topmost level settings of the Turnitin tab in Cobra. If you did not select it there, but meant to, it can be selected here.
12. Exclude bibliographic materials from Similarity Index for all papers in this assignment: This will allow the percent score of similarity to reflect content of the paper without the bibliographic matches factored in. This can be turned on in individual reports for added depth to the review of each paper.
13. Exclude quoted materials from Similarity Index for all papers in this assignment: This will allow the percent score of the similarity to reflect the content of the paper without material in quotation marks factored in. This can be turned on in individual reports for added depth to the review of each paper.
14. Exclude small matches: This allows the instructor to set a small match threshold (words or percentage) to exclude from the report as well. (An additional window opens when "yes" is selected).
15. Would you like to save these options as your defaults for future assignments: This gives you the option to save these settings for future dropboxes. If enabled, these basic settings would apply to every new Turnitin dropbox you create, but allowing you to make changes singularly to each one.
16. Click Submit, then Save.

 

Once you have completed your Turnitin settings and saved them, you should be able to see confirmation that Turnitin has been activated for this dropbox.

NOTE: It is NOT advisable to create an open dropbox in your course for students to check other coursework.  By submitting the assignments to YOUR course prior to submission to their other courses, it will flag their submission to their other courses at 100%, which can impact their grades.  We understand that you believe this may be a practice that can be helpful to students, but it is not.  They have to explain to their other instructors what has happened and why their submission is flagged.  Please advise your students to talk with their instructors to have draft Turnitin dropboxes added to their courses.