Optional LTI settings

Optional assignment settings can be set as part of the assignment creation process, but they can also be edited for existing assignments as follows:

  1. Click on the assignment title to be taken into the Assignment Inbox.
  2. Click the gear icon at the top right of the page.
  3. Click on Optional Settings at the bottom.

The information below will help you to understand the settings available and correctly customize the assignment.

Should you find that any optional settings are unavailable, please contact your Turnitin administrator who may be able to enable features within their Turnitin account.

Submission settings

Submission storage options

  • Standard paper repository

    Student papers are stored in the global paper repository.

  • Institution paper repository

    Student papers are stored in an institutional repository.

  • Do not store the submitted papers

    A similarity report will still be generated for paper submissions, but your students' papers will not be stored in the Turnitin standard paper repository or the institution's paper repository for future comparison.

  • If you find that this setting is unavailable to you, please contact your administrator to request it to be enabled in their account settings. If your administrator subsequently finds that the setting is also unavailable to them, it is recommended that they speak to their Turnitin account manager.

Allow submissions of any file type

If needed, select the checkbox to allow all file types - even those that are not supported for generating a Similarity Report.

Allow late submissions

If needed, select the checkbox to allow late submissions for the assignment; students will be able to submit papers after the due date.

This option only applies to students who have not submitted previously to the assignment.

Enable anonymous marking

If enabled for this account, select the checkbox to hide student names within the assignment inbox, Similarity Report and online grading until the assignment's feedback release date. Student names may be revealed for an assignment by clicking on the anonymous marking enabled button to reveal the author's name for the paper.

If a student's name is revealed when anonymous marking is enabled, an audit trail will be created and your Turnitin administrator will receive a notification. Revealing student names in any way cannot be undone.

If you find that this setting is unavailable to you, please contact your administrator to activate the anonymous marking feature in their account settings. You cannot enable anonymous marking after the start date of the assignment has passed.

In an effort to maintain anonymity, the student's grade will not appear in the grade book until the feedback release date has passed.

Enable Translated Matching

If enabled for this account, select whether a separate report will be generated based on English translations of a student's non-English submitted paper. Find out more about Translated Matching here.

If you find that this setting is unavailable to you, please contact your administrator.

Enable grammar checking using ETS e-rater technology

This feature provides instructors with the option to enable the e-rater grammar and spelling check for all submissions to the assignment. When enabled student submissions receive detailed grammar feedback automatically through the e-rater technology.

Attach a Rubric

If you would like to use a rubric to grade the papers submitted to the assignment, you may use the rubric list drop down menu to select a previously created or imported rubric, or you can launch the rubric manager by clicking on the Launch Rubric Manager button and create a new rubric to attach to the assignment.

Compare against

These search options allow you to select the repositories that students' submissions will be checked against when processing Similarity Reports for papers. The similarity score may decrease if a repository option is deselected.

The options are:

  • Student paper repository - compares current submissions to previous submissions in classes and assignments in Turnitin across institutions.
  • Institution paper repository - compares current submissions to the repository of student papers unique to your institution.
  • Current and archived internet - compares current submissions to a repository of archived and live publicly available internet pages containing billions of pages of existing content and tens of thousands of new pages added daily.
  • Periodicals, journals, & publications - compares current submissions to third party periodical, journal, and publication content including many major professional journals, periodicals, and business publications.

Similarity Report

Report generation and resubmissions

  • Generate reports immediately (students cannot resubmit)

    Similarity Reports for all submissions will be generated immediately. Students cannot resubmit papers. If, for any reason, a resubmission is required when this setting is selected, you must manually delete a student's submission from the assignment inbox to allow the student to submit again.

  • Generate reports immediately (students can resubmit until due date). After 3 resubmissions, reports will generate after 24 hours.

    This option is recommended when instructors want to use the Similarity Report as formative feedback. Similarity Reports will be generated immediately for each student's initial submission to this assignment.  Students can check their work, make changes as necessary and resubmit the best version of their paper to the assignment.

    • Students may resubmit as often as they wish until the assignment's due date.
    • Similarity Reports for a fourth or subsequent submission will generate after 24 hours of submission.
    • With resubmissions, only the latest submission's report will be available to both you and the student.

    • Similarity Reports will regenerate within an hour of the due date and time to allow student submissions to compare against one another within the same assignment also known as collusion check. Collusion check will occur within an hour of the due date and time. This means that Similarity Reports will regenerate in order to compare student submissions against one another within the same assignment. In addition, it is possible that the report score will change after collusion check has occurred.

    • This report regeneration may cause a change in a paper's similarity score. No resubmissions are allowed after the due date and time of the assignment.
  • Generate reports on due date (students can resubmit until due date)

    Similarity Reports will not be generated for any submission until the due date and time of the assignment is reached. Students may resubmit as many times as needed until the due date and time, but will not receive reports during this period. No resubmissions are allowed after the due date and time of the assignment.

Allow students to view Similarity Reports

Select the checkbox to allow your students to view their Similarity Reports for submissions to this assignment.

Exclude bibliographic materials

Select the checkbox to exclude text appearing in the bibliography, works cited, or references sections of student papers from being checked for matches when generating Similarity Reports. You can overwrite this setting in individual Similarity Reports.

Exclude quoted materials

Select the checkbox to exclude quotations from being checked for matches when generating Similarity Reports. You can overwrite this setting in individual Similarity Reports.

Exclude small sources

Select the checkbox to exclude matches that are not of sufficient length (determined by you) from being considered when generating Similarity Reports. A box will appear, where you can exclude matches by word count or by percentage. You can overwrite this setting in individual Similarity Reports.

Exclude assignment template

If you have provided a template document for your students to follow, these can now be excluded from the Similarity Report by uploading the template or copying the text into the Create Custom Template field. Once a student has made a submission to the assignment, this feature can no longer be edited. Find out more about excluding templates here.

There are some requirements which must be met for a successful template exclusion. They are:

  • Uploaded file templates must be less than 100 MB. If your file exceeds 100 MB, you can reduce its size by removing any images or save the file as a rich text or plain text file. You could also copy the text from the file and paste it into the Create Custom Template text box.

  • Accepted file types for upload: Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, PostScript, PDF, HTML, RTF, OpenOffice (ODT), Hangul (HWP), and plain text.

  • Templates must have at least 20 words of text.

Once a student submits to the assignment, this setting will be disabled and cannot be edited. You can remove template exclusions from individual similarity reports from within the report itself.

Additional Settings

Save these settings for future use

Check this option to save these settings as defaults for future assignments.

When you are completed with your changes, scroll to the bottom of the page and click the Submit button to save your settings.