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Turnitin Assignments in Ultra Courses


Turnitin can assist in detecting unoriginal or un-paraphrased content in written submissions. The tool generates a "similarity report" that shows what percentage of the submission matches existing content in Turnitin's repositories.

The Office of Academic Affairs offers policy guidance on using Turnitin and a recommended syllabus statement instructors can use to notify students that they are using Turnitin. 


Turnitin AI Detection No Longer Available

The free preview of the Turnitin AI Detection Tool has expired as of Jan. 1, 2024. Due to concerns about the reliability of this tool and the significant cost, ITS has decided not to license this tool at this time. The standard plagiarism detections tools will continue to be available via Turnitin.

For more information read Online Learning Services' statement on AI writing detection.

If you have any further questions about AI writing tools and technology, please contact the Online Learning Services team at help@syr.edu.

Policy questions about academic integrity should be directed to the Center for Learning and Student Success (CLASS)



Adding Turnitin Assignments

To add a Turnitin assignment to your course, click on the "purple plus sign" in your course content area and select "Content Market" from the drop down list. This assignments act as a standard content item and can be moved or created inside of folders or learning modules.

Screenshot of user interface

Select the "Turnitin tile" from the content market.

Screenshot of user interface

Complete the fields from the pop up menu. 

  • Each assignment requires a Title, Instructions, and Max Grade.

  • Start Date: This creates a release condition that defines when students will be able to open the assignment. In the meantime they will see a link for it, but they will not see the details or be able to launch it. This can be edited in Blackboard.

  • Due Date: This creates a due date for the assignment. This can be edited in Blackboard

  • Feedback Release Date: This is the date and time when the grade will post automatically in Blackboard and when the student will be able to see feedback and their grade in Turnitin.

  • PeerMark: This enables the ability for instructors to attach a PeerMark Assignment to the submission. In PeerMark Assignments, students review and comment on the work of one or more classmates. Instructors can add review criteria and grade students on the comments students provide to colleagues. .

Screenshot of user interface

Click save to complete the assignment.

Optional Settings

Most assignments are made with the default settings, but there are additional settings available.


 Submission Settings

Submission settings contain additional criteria such as:

  • Allowing late submissions

  • Defining what file types are allowed

  • Enabling anonymous grading

  • Attaching Rubrics

  • Enabling Grammar Checking

  • Determining what, if any, repositories the paper is added to.

For more information on the submission settings, please visit adjusting assignment settings.

 Compare Against

The compare against settings allows you to select what repositories the submissions are compared to when the software creates the similarity report. By default, papers are compared against all four repositories: student paper repository, institution student paper repository, current and archived web site content, and periodicals, journals, and publications. 

To learn more about the different repositories please visit  Turntin Support.

 Similarity Report

The submitted paper is compared to Turnitin's primary databases. Turnitin then generates a similarity report, which indicates whether the student properly cited all sources and if additional measures or help may be warranted. The similarity report has options for when the similarity report is generated and made available to students, and if the student can resubmit to the assignment.

By default, the similarity report is generated immediately, is available to students, and student cannot resubmit. The dropdown menu can be used to change between the options for generating the similarity report. There are options below the dropdown menu for excluding portions of the paper.

For more information on the similarity report, please visit Turnitin Support.

 Exclude assignment template

If you would like your students to use a template you provide for the assignment, you can upload a template to the turnitin assignment so that the template is excluded from the similarity report. For more information about excluding assignment templates, please visit Turnitin Support.

 Additional settings

If you check the box to "save these settings for future use," the options selected for this assignment will become your new default settings.

Edit Assignment Start and End Dates


 Turnitin Assignment Settings

Some assignment settings, such as the availability date, the due date, and the max points can only be edited in Blackboard after the item is created. Other settings can be adjusted in Turnitin by launching the link and clicking the settings gear in the upper right hand corner. The gear will bring you to the same page as when the assignment was originally created. Some settings, such as enabling anonymous submissions, are unavailable after one student has made a submission.

Gear icon.png

 Edit Due Date

Once the assignment has been created, some aspects can only be edited in Blackboard. To edit the due date, max grade, or category, click the "three dot" menu and select edit from the dropdown menu.  To delete the assignment, select delete from the dropdown menu. 

Delete or edit turnitin assignment on content page

You can edit any of the fields in the panel that opens, just as you would for any other Blackboard assignment. Be sure to click save once you've finished your edits. 

Panel for editing Turnitin assignment with option forr due date, grade using, maximum points, grade catergory, and other assignment options

 Edit Due Date

In your content area, you will see the newly created Turnitin assignment with the due date displayed. Release conditions determine when the students can open the assignment to see the details and begin submissions; display the setting by hovering over the "Date/time link". Click the link to edit the release conditions or to limit which students or groups can access the assignment. 

Screenshot of user interface of the Turnitin assignment on the course content page

The Release Conditions are set automatically by the start date and time you set in Turnitin. After creation they can be edited just as any other item in your Blackboard course. Be sure to click Save, after you've made any changes.

Screenshot of user interface of release conditions panel



AI Writing Detection

The free preview of the Turnitin AI Detection Tool has expired as of Jan. 1, 2024. Due to concerns about the reliability of this tool and the significant cost, ITS has decided not to license this tool at this time. The standard plagiarism detections tools will continue to be available via Turnitin. For more information, please contact the Online Learning Services team at help@syr.edu.


Additional Resources

Turnitin provides a number of addition resources on assignment settings and general guidance for instructors.

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