There are ten levels of complexity for AI-generated content. In HE we should look at levels 7 and above.

1. Early primary school 
2. Late primary school 
3. Early middle school 
4. Late middle school 
5. Early high school 
6. Late high school
7. Undergraduate lower division
8. Undergraduate upper division 
9. Graduate level 
10. Advanced PhD level 

There are ten levels of complexity for AI-generated content. In HE we should look at levels 7 and above.

1. Early primary school 
2. Late primary school 
3. Early middle school 
4. Late middle school 
5. Early high school 
6. Late high school
7. Undergraduate lower division
8. Undergraduate upper division 
9. Graduate level 
10. Advanced PhD level 

If you have a question that has been graded in a test and you decide, for whatever reason, that you want to give everyone who completed it a full mark. In edit mode view the question – click on the three dots and select “Edit/Regrade” option – this will had a check box next to the text “Give full credit to everyone” – if you select the box and save then everyone who took that question will get the full marks.

New functionality has been added to the standard Blackboard Assignment – which gives you the ability to enable Turnitin. See our Blackboard Assignments with Turnitin guide for further details.

If you have your content organised into folders in your file store – left mouse click and drag the folder onto the top of the Blackboard content area. It will hover over areas and if you are happy with the location release the hold on the folder. This will add the folder and all the content directly into Blackboard.

Yes you can do this now. This is a new feature to add questions into a Blackboard document and allow students to get instant feedback. Read the Guide on Knowledge Check Questions.

Yes you can add a link for students to click on and access any live Module Evaluations. To do this Add Content > Content Market and click on the plus button in the Student MEQ Link – Course Tool item. The icon is a royal blue square with the text blue on it. Make it available to students and refer to it during any module evaluation window. Remember that as a Staff member you can access all module evaluation tools from the Tools menu in the black left hand panel.

Reviewing student activity helps inform decisions in academic disputes and aids in troubleshooting. You can also analyze the course participation of students at risk. Instructors and other higher roles can use the student activity log to check what a particular student did in a course.  Go to the Gradebook and locate the student. You view the activity from the third Activity tab and download the results if needed.

https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Performance/Student_Activity_Log

Blackboard has a default maximum file upload size of 2560 MB.

In order to receive emails when new posts are added to discussion boards, you must:

1. Ensure you’ve clicked the Follow button on the Discussion board.
2. Enable Discussion activity notifications in your Notification Settings. You must set this in both:
   • Stream notifications: tick all of the Discussion activity options
   • Email notifications: set it to email me straight away and tick all of the Discussion activity options.

Start in the module you want to copy to and click the top set of 3 dots next to Course Content. Select Copy Content, then locate the module where the original source material is and eventually open file location of the folder/document/assessment you want to copy in the sidebar menu on the right.

All courses in Blackboard tend to be related to taught module codes, however, there are occasions where a non-standard course might be appropriate. Please read the Guide for getting approval for a non Standard course.

If you wish to remove an Instructor, Module Administrator or any other staff member from your course. You must first edit their role to be a Student. To do this open the Class Register – locate the staff member and click on the three dots at the end of the row and select Member Information. From the side panel that opens revealing that persons information, click on the Role drop down and select Student from the list. Then save the change. Then repeat access but at that point click on the Delete icon in the Member card to remove member.

Module Leaders have a role of Primary. This means that they appear at the top of the list of Instructors. To do this open the course register and view all. View all Instructors and next to the Module Leaders entry – click on the three dots to edit member settings – once the panel has opened tick the Make Primary selection box. This works with 2 Primary aka 2 Module Leaders.

Yes there is – it is a single App for both Staff and Students. From 8 October 2024 the app is called Blackboard and is available on the Apple and Google Play Stores. If you have the old Learn App you just need to update it. You have to enter under institution: Durham University Ultra to then authenticate with your CIS userid and password. It is 2FA so you will need to approve it.

Note – we do not advocate you doing any high stake assessment submissions on the App – always use a desktop/laptop.

The search icon is so subtle you may have missed it! Look to the top right of the screen and you will see a Magnifying Glass icon which, when clicked, displays a search box

Please note that the following files are not permitted to be uploaded directly to Blackboard. These file types are:

.webm,.mkv,.flv,.vob,.ogv,.ogg,.drc,.gif,.gifv,.mng,.avi,.MTS,.M2TS,.TS,.mov,.qt,.wmv,.yuv,.rm,.rmvb,.viv,.asf,.amv,.mp4,.m4p,.m4v,.mp2,.mpe,.mpv,.mpg,.mpeg,.m2v,.svi,.3gp,.3g2,.mxf,.roq,.nsv,.f4v,.f4p,.f4a,.f4b for video

.aa,.aac,.aax,.act,.aiff,.alac,.amr,.ape,.au,.awb,.dss,.dvf,.flac,.gsm,.iklax,.ivs,.m4a,.m4b,.mmf,.movpkg,.mp3,.mpc,.msv,.nmf,.mogg,.opus,.ra,.raw,.rf64,.sln,.tta,.voc,.vox,.wav,.wma,.wv,.web,.8svx,.cda for audio

Instead please utilise the Panopto/Encore tools.

If you have set a preferred name with HR then this should appear on your Microsoft Teams option – to get it to appear in Blackboard you need to edit your profile and where your name appears click on the pencil icon that appears to edit it. Tick to show the Additional Name (which is your set preferred name). View the Blackboard Help Guide on Edit Your Profile.

If you haven’t set a preferred name then please email HR and request a preferred name – once they have made the change – and you can see it filter through to Microsoft Teams you can then edit your Blackboard profile to set the Additional name to make your preferred name appear.

Whichever Faculty you are in please email:
Faculty of Arts & Humanities – [email protected]
Faculty of Social Sciences & Health – [email protected]
Faculty of Business– [email protected]
Faculty of Science – [email protected]
Colleges & Wider Student Experience Division – [email protected]
Professional Support Services – [email protected]

duo, also known as Durham University Online, was the older version of the current Virtual Learning Environment Blackboard. Instead of copying all the content/courses from duo to the new platform Blackboard – we archived courses and loaded duo onto a cloud platform enabling students who took courses in the past the ability to view their course content. This will eventually be archived. If you have any queries about duo then please contact the IT Service Desk.

CIS is responsible for the rollover of courses (copying course into a new shell) and this process typically occurs in early July, based upon a list that is provided by departmental administrators. Speak in the first instance to your Admin team who liaise with CIS.

You must not use the paperclip icon in a content editor to “attach” any audio or video files when uploading work to be assessed. You should always follow the instructions given in the assignment and upload first to Panopto. This ensures your work is in the correct place to be assessed.

Blackboard has a default maximum file upload size of 2560 MB.

In order to receive emails when new posts are added to discussion boards, you must:

1. Ensure you’ve clicked the Follow button on the Discussion board.
2. Enable Discussion activity notifications in your Notification Settings. You must set this in both:
   • Stream notifications: tick all of the Discussion activity options
   • Email notifications: set it to email me straight away and tick all of the Discussion activity options.

Whatever the reason for not being able to submit – contact your Department Administrator without delay to let them know you are having difficulty submitting. They know the assignment and how it was set up.

If you are trying on your own device then this is very difficult to investigation so our typical advice is to find a computer in the Library or a computer in the TLC (Teaching & Learning Centre) and try and upload from there because we can look at the logs on the machine.

The Department will listen to what you have tried and they will contact CIS if they feel there is something wrong and CIS will find out what is happening.

Yes there is – it is a single App for both Staff and Students. From 8 October 2024 the app is called Blackboard and is available on the Apple and Google Play Stores. If you have the old Learn App you just need to update it. You have to enter under institution: Durham University Ultra to then authenticate with your CIS userid and password. It is 2FA so you will need to approve it.

Note – we do not advocate you doing any high stake assessment submissions on the App – always use a desktop/laptop.

The search icon is so subtle you may have missed it! Look to the top right of the screen and you will see a Magnifying Glass icon which, when clicked, displays a search box

Please note that the following files are not permitted to be uploaded directly to Blackboard. These file types are:

.webm,.mkv,.flv,.vob,.ogv,.ogg,.drc,.gif,.gifv,.mng,.avi,.MTS,.M2TS,.TS,.mov,.qt,.wmv,.yuv,.rm,.rmvb,.viv,.asf,.amv,.mp4,.m4p,.m4v,.mp2,.mpe,.mpv,.mpg,.mpeg,.m2v,.svi,.3gp,.3g2,.mxf,.roq,.nsv,.f4v,.f4p,.f4a,.f4b for video

.aa,.aac,.aax,.act,.aiff,.alac,.amr,.ape,.au,.awb,.dss,.dvf,.flac,.gsm,.iklax,.ivs,.m4a,.m4b,.mmf,.movpkg,.mp3,.mpc,.msv,.nmf,.mogg,.opus,.ra,.raw,.rf64,.sln,.tta,.voc,.vox,.wav,.wma,.wv,.web,.8svx,.cda for audio

Instead please utilise the Panopto/Encore tools.

When you registered for the University you will have been asked to set a Preferred name. If you did this and your name is correct on Microsoft Teams but not in Blackboard then you need to edit your Blackboard profile name and show to display the Additional Name (which is your preferred name). Read the Blackboard Help Guide on Editing your Profile.

If you did not set a Preferred name at the point of registration then you can change this by using Banner Self Service.

duo, also known as Durham University Online, was the older version of the current Virtual Learning Environment Blackboard. Instead of copying all the content/courses from duo to the new platform Blackboard – we archived courses and loaded duo onto a cloud platform enabling students who took courses in the past the ability to view their course content. This will eventually be archived. If you have any queries about duo then please contact the IT Service Desk.

This can be quite common due to the variety of ways that LaTeX documents can be authored. Based upon early testing, we’ve found that this can be caused by one of the following issues:

1. Using unsupported LaTeX packages – Chirun supports many LaTeX packages, but it may be that you’re using something that isn’t yet supported. To check, visit the LaTeX compatibility — Chirun 0.8.0 documentation web page.
2. Commands specific to PDF output – Your document may have a very long preamble, containing commands which change the layout of the page or font sizes and styles. While these are important for the PDF output, they will not have any effect in HTML output. To get around this, you can create short conditional statements using \ifplastex.
3. Multi-file naming issue – In LaTeX, the \input{name} command is used to include the content of another file into your main file. However, Chirun only works correctly if the file name.tex does not exist. If it finds name.tex, Chirun expects it to include a special LaTeX command called \begin{document}, which is typically only in the main LaTeX file, not in files meant for \input. To fix this issue, rename all input files to remove the .tex extension. This ensures Chirun doesn’t try to process the input files incorrectly.

Visit the diagnosing errors in Chirun packages section of the staff guide for further information.

Unless you specify otherwise your Encore recordings will appear online as soon as they have uploaded and processed. This normally takes less than an hour, but at times of peak activity, this may take several hours.

See the Audio Visual Team’s information on Encore-enabled rooms on Sharepoint (internal Durham users only, login required)

You can find out more information about Encore on the Service Catalogue (internal Durham users only, login required)

For information requests please contact the Encore operational team: [email protected] 

For technical support please contact the IT Service Desk: https://servicedesk.durham.ac.uk/)

You can access the full lecture recording policy on Sharepoint (internal Durham users only, login required)

Lecture Recording Good Practice Guidance (internal Durham users only, login required)

Yes. There are two ways to do that. The simplest is to use this link: https://app.feedbackfruits.com/ opens a new window to the analytics dashboard. If you are not already logged in to Blackboard and FeedbackFruits, it will ask for your email and then send you a “magic link” to take you straight in.
Once you are in the dashboard, select the Courses link under the heading INSIGHTS and then pick a course to see all the activity data.

In future the answer may be yes, but at the moment for us it is no. FeedbackFruits have a Turnitin integration option that is currently undergoing beta-testing. We have not enabled this feature (yet) during the pilot. If this is something that is key to your workflows, please get in touch with a member of DCAD.

The vendor provides guidance for each tool within its online help and also publishes a general statement at: Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools opens in a new window

They have also published a Statement about their WCAG Compliance opens in a new window which shows compliance at different levels.

The vendor provides guidance for each tool within its online help and also publishes a general statement at: Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools opens in a new window

They have also published a Statement about their WCAG Compliance opens in a new window which shows compliance at different levels.

Yes! You can control the visibility of assignments using the Sections feature. Visit our Using Sections in Gradescope guide for further details.

Yes! Go to the Review Grades page within the Gradescope Dashboard and look at the Viewed column. This should show a green eye icon for any students who have viewed their feedback. For further information, visit Gradescope’s guidance.

Yes, it’s possible to submit on behalf of a student. For instructions visit the Gradescope guide How to submit on behalf of a student.

Marking by Section is not possible if you’ve enabled anonymous grading.

This is likely to be an issue with the Safari browser on a Mac. By default the browser may be blocking third-party cookies, which prevents certain apps like Gradescope from opening.

To get around this issue, you can either:

Turn off the option to prevent cross-site tracking

1. In your Safari browser, go to the Settings
2. Turn-off ‘Prevent cross-site tracking’ by unticking the box.

Use a different browser

Alternatively use a different browser such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

Yes, there’s an option within the assignment settings to configure how you want the rubrics to display to students.

You may notice that the link to a Gradescope Assignment shows ‘No due date’. This is a known issue that has been raised as a feature request with Gradescope Support. This should not affect functionality, as the due dates for Gradescope Assignments can still be found in the assignment itself.

This is usually a result of students using a pencil that doesn’t generate enough contrast when scanned. Experienced users of Gradescope recommend giving students clear guidance in advance of their assignment or exam. A black pen can help address this issue.

They are essentially the same assignment type, but the difference is who uploads the work to Gradescope. The Exams assignment type is automatically configured for Instructors to upload the work. Whereas a Homework / Problem Set is automatically configured for students to upload the work to Gradescope. The two are interchangeable, so if for instance you start creating an Exam (Instructors upload) and then realise you should have created Homework / Problem Set (Students upload), you can simply edit the assignment and change the settings.

This is likely to be an issue with the Safari browser on a Mac. By default the browser may be blocking third-party cookies, which prevents certain apps like Gradescope from opening.

To get around this issue, you can either:

Turn off the option to prevent cross-site tracking

1. In your Safari browser, go to the Settings
2. Turn-off ‘Prevent cross-site tracking’ by unticking the box.

Use a different browser

Alternatively use a different browser such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

This is not yet configured at Durham University, but there are plans for it to be enabled soon. Your department will advise you once this is available to use.

You may notice that the link to a Gradescope Assignment shows ‘No due date’. This is a known issue that has been raised as a feature request with Gradescope Support. This should not affect functionality, as the due dates for Gradescope Assignments can still be found in the assignment itself.

Students to not need to create an account. Their access is granted through the Blackboard Course they access the Numbas Exam from.

The Numbas developers occassionally run online training sessions. All of their sessions are recorded and available to rewatch on the Numbas Documentation website.

If there is demand for training on a specific part of Numbas, let a member of the DCAD Digital Learning Team know. We are happy to approach the Numbas developers and ask if they’d be willing to run a bespoke session for staff.

You can access PebblePad in one of two ways:

• If a lecturer has asked you to use PebblePad on your module, look in your course on Blackboard. They may have added a link with the PebblePad icon that will open it for you and automatically sign you in.
• Alternatively you can try and access PebblePad directly at: https://v3.pebblepad.co.uk/login/durham. When prompted, choose the option saying that you have an IT account at Durham University and it will use single sign on to log you into the system.

You can access PebblePad in one of two ways:

• If a lecturer has asked you to use PebblePad on your module, look in your course on Blackboard. They may have added a link with the PebblePad icon that will open it for you and automatically sign you in.
• Alternatively you can try and access PebblePad directly at: https://v3.pebblepad.co.uk/login/durham. When prompted, choose the option saying that you have an IT account at Durham University and it will use single sign on to log you into the system.

If you have already submitted your work for assessment then you do not need to share any more. As long as your workbook sitting in your Asset Store has the Blue Bar at the top indicating that it has been shared for assessment – you can just concentrate on updating your work until the deadline. You should never manually share a file into the workspace as you will then not be able to auto share your workbook. Listen to the advice from your Teacher who will give you guidance on the process as well on what you are expected to do.

If you have submitted your workbook – the likelihood is that the permission to remove a submission will not exist, however, if it does and you have removed it. How do I re-submit my workbook?

Your workbook will now not autoshare – so you need to manually share your workbook for assessment. Following the dedicated guide for doing this. Help Guide on Sharing for Assessment

Check that you have actually submitted the workbook. Look in your Asset Store from the Pebblepad Dashboard and look for the workbook to be assessed. If should state that it has been shared for assessment in the details panel. Then open the workbook and see if the Blue Bar appears along the top to indicate that it has been shared for assessment. If not – go back the Resource Store and locate the original workbook and it should open with the option to Share for Assessment. It now becomes yours and you should access it from the Asset store from now on. For more details read the Help Guide on Auto-Submitting work.

You can view students’ progress in peerScholar by selecting the Student Progress & Grading tab at the top. This provides an overview of students’ in each phase and their grades (if they have been assigned one). You can also see the distribution by clicking View Distribution at the top right corner.

The Student Progress & Grading page enables an Instructor to:

• submit on behalf of student (select the submission status to Edit to add or remove)
• mark work as submitted / not submitted
• allow late access
• reset the phase (for Assess)

If you are within the submission deadline, you can amend your submission or feedback entry using the Edit Phase option (shown in screenshot below) or by selecting the pencil icon in other areas or by simply accessing the phase. You can choose to save your progress, using Save draft, but remember to submit to complete the phase.

Note: You cannot make any changes to your work/submission, after the submission deadline.

Once you have completed phase, it is indicated with a green tick and your submission date and time is timestamped. Selecting a completed phase allows you to view your submission or feedback you have added for your peers.

There may be instances where your answer text reaches the character limit and ends with three dots to show that there is text missing.

To fix this:

1. Locate the affected activity in Poll Everywhere
2. Click Edit
3. From the options at the top, choose Visual Settings
4. Check the option Auto-fit content
5. Updating slides in Powerpoint:
   • Windows users: In PowerPoint go to the Poll Everywhere tab and choose Sync. If this doesn’t fix all slides, they’ll need to be reinserted.
   • Mac users: Affected slides will need to be reinserted.

If your responses are limited to 25, you’re on the free plan. To remove this restriction, you need to request a Poll Everywhere license from the Service Desk.

No, only staff members need accounts to use Poll Everywhere. As a student you will join using a QR code or web address. You will typically respond anonymously.

Details of any recently discovered bugs (and fixes) are available on the Turnitin Known Issues page opens a new window.
The products that the University uses are Feedback Studio and Similarity Check.

New functionality has been added to the standard Blackboard Assignment – which gives you the ability to enable Turnitin. See our Blackboard Assignments with Turnitin guide for further details.

No, unfortunately Durham’s Turnitin licence only covers submissions by students for assessed work.

Staff who would like to submit their writing to a plagiarism detection service may want consider using iThenticate (an additional Turnitin tool), for plagiarism prevention tool in published works. This comes at a cost – based on the number of submissions.

For more details please consult the iThenticate website opens a new window.

There may be times when a Turnitin Assignment has been marked, but the grade later needs to be removed. Turnitin allows the mark to be cleared, but unfortunately it remains visible in the Blackboard Gradebook, which only accepts numerical values. The ‘Resync grade’ option in Turnitin does not resolve this issue. As a workaround, we suggest entering a score of 0 in the Blackboard Gradebook and inform the student that the grade is under review, explaining that the visible score is temporary. This ensures that individual marks can be withheld when necessary.

No. You should access Turnitin from a link in Blackboard. If you are presented with a page asking you to log in to Turnitin (perhaps when trying to add a link to, or access a Turnitin assignment) do not create an account. This will fail and is happening because of a bug. Try logging out of Blackboard and then back into it. If that doesn’t fix it then you need to report this to the IT Service Desk and give the system time and CIS will chase them to get this resolved.

No we don’t. We chose not to enable this feature because we don’t believe it fits with the University’s approach to assessment. Unlike accusations of plagiarism where the source documents exist, you can’t definitively match student work back to generative AI output. The detection tools are closed systems which makes them exceptionally hard to verify. There have been studies showing that AI detector results are biased against certain demographics (though note that in 2023 Turnitin claim that their detector is not affected). There are easy ways to defeat these tools. This is an arms race that the detectors can’t win.

There is a difference between similar sounding labels used by Turnitin: Remove and Delete.

If you Remove a submission it is hidden from sight, but behind the scenes the system retains it.
If you Delete a submission, it will also disappear, but this is because it has been removed from the system.

If you choose the option Delete, all traces will be automatically removed from the system after 30 days, meaning it cannot be restored.

In most case we would suggest you choose Remove rather than Delete.

Turnitin allows an instructor from another university or institution to make a paper view request. This may happen if student work that they are marking returns a match on a paper submitted by a Durham student (past or present). This email has been sent to you, because the Durham student’s paper was submitted to a course you teach or have taught on. The email includes a brief recap of the assignment (the title, submission date, and class title). It also contains basic information about the matching paper, such as the name of the instructor who made the request and the similarity score.

A full plain-text version of the original paper (as it was submitted by the student) is included in the email. To share the original paper with the person who has made the request, reply to the email (with attachments) and it will be sent directly to them.

This request will have been sent to all Instructors on the course. Generally the Module Leader should be the only one to respond. Please note that there is no obligation to respond to a received request.

To find out more about paper view requests. please consult this detailed guide from Turnitin:
Managing Paper View Requests opens a new window.

When you upload your assignment, Turnitin converts Word files to PDF in order to generate a preview. This can cause issues when the document includes images with transparency such as PNG. Images get compressed and may appear pixelated or as black boxes.

To avoid this, export your Word document as a PDF and choose the option ‘Best for printing‘, rather than ‘Best for electronic distribution’. This should retain the original image quality.

From September 2023 – the ability to upload on behalf of a non-enrolled student was removed by Turnitin. So this functionality no longer exists. Each upload must be tied to a student.

 A service desk call should be raised with CIS at this link

Turnitin will quietly set courses to read-only mode after 12 months. If this happens, when you open a piece of work for marking from the Assignment Inbox, you will see a popup like this

To sort this, you need to exit from marking and carry out a task that causes Turnitin to switch your course back into live mode.

• Create a new Turnitin assignment in the course. Don’t worry about the settings, just set a name and save it.
• Return to Blackboard and ensure this is set as hidden from students.
• Click the link to launch the new assignment and display the Assignment Inbox
• Switch to the Analytics tab – this will force a sync. You should the message ‘Your students are still busy working on their assignments. Come back later, or refresh to check again.’
• Close the assignment to return to Blackboard.
• Delete the new hidden Turnitin assignment you have just created.
• You should now be able to mark the real assignment, without the annoying Read Only mode popup.

The colours are an indication of similarity:

Light blue: 0% matching text
Dark blue: 1-24% matching text
Yellow: 25-49% matching text
Orange: 50-74% matching text
Red: 75-100% matching text

There is no ‘magic number’. A high similarity score does not always suggest that a piece of writing has been plagiarised, just as a low similarity score does not always indicate that no plagiarism has occurred. Staff judgement is always required.

Consider the following scenarios:

• Submitting a document of considerable size could result in a 0% similarity score with a report that still contains matches. This is because the similarity score has been rounded down to 0%, rather than being exactly 0%.
• You may have submitted multiple drafts of the same paper to your institution’s private repository, meaning your final draft has resulted in a score of 100%. To avoid this issue, we advise that you only submit your final draft to the private repository.
• An individual within your institution has managed to acquire a copy of your document. They submit this document to the institution’s private repository and receive a similarity score of 25%. You submit your original document a week later to the private repository but receive a 100% similarity score.

When a student uploads an original document e.g. a Word (docx) file, Turnitin creates a PDF preview that can be used by markers to add feedback comments to. You may notice some elements may have moved slightly, which can be an issue if you are relying on precise placement of elements such as an arrow pointing to a specific part of a diagram, or a circle highlighting a point on a graph.

We recommend, you download the student’s original file and check if the formatting is more accurate in this version. If so, advise markers to refer to the original when marking.

If you concerns this may affect future assignments, instruct students to upload a PDF version of their document instead. This should prevent the formatting changing when uploaded to Turnitin.

​If you have accidentally submitted the wrong file to Turnitin, go back to the submission screen. If a ‘Resubmit’ button appears, you may click this to resubmit your assignment.

If this button does not appear, this means that resubmission is not permitted. Contact your department for guidance as soon as possible.

Turnitin only accepts one document submission. If you need to submit multiple files try and combine them into one document or if different file formats – then zip together. Always contact your Department for advice.

Yes the teaching staff can see that you have viewed the feedback that they have provided for you through a Turnitin assignment. It is always important to view the feedback that has been written for you to help you improve for future submissions.

Whatever the reason for not being able to submit – contact your Department Administrator without delay to let them know you are having difficulty submitting. They know the assignment and how it was set up.

If you are trying on your own device then this is very difficult to investigation so our typical advice is to find a computer in the Library or a computer in the TLC (Teaching & Learning Centre) and try and upload from there because we can look at the logs on the machine.

The Department will listen to what you have tried and they will contact CIS if they feel there is something wrong and CIS will find out what is happening.

You have made a submission that is incompatible with the Turnitin system. Typically, this happens in the case of an image or a scanned file. If you are trying to submit a PDF file, it needs to be created from a text document. We do not accept PDFs in image format. In order to test whether your PDF is a text document, open it in Adobe Acrobat and click on the Select Text option at the top of the screen. Proceed to highlight the text of your document with your mouse (these options may vary with PDF-reading programs other than Adobe Acrobat). If you are not able to highlight any text, your PDF is an image and does not contain text.

Turnitin does not accept files which are larger than 100MB, or more than 800 pages long.

It’s often pictures in documents that cause the file size to get too big. 

If you can’t submit your file via Turnitin, speak to your department as soon as possible for advice. They may suggest that you:

• remove images from your document 
• save the file as a rich text or plain text file to make the file smaller for originality checking only
• compress the images to make them smaller

To compress images in Microsoft Word documents: 

1. Go to File and Save As
2. When choosing where to save the file, a Tools option appears at the bottom of the screen. Click the downward arrow and select Compress Pictures
3. Place a tick in the box beside Delete cropped areas of pictures and set Target output to ‘Screen (150 ppi): good for Web pages and projectors’
4. Click OK and then save the file with a different name.

This will reduce the file size considerably

When you upload your assignment, Turnitin converts Word files to PDF in order to generate a preview. This can cause issues when the document includes images with transparency such as PNG. Images get compressed and may appear pixelated or as black boxes.

To avoid this, export your Word document as a PDF and choose the option ‘Best for printing‘, rather than ‘Best for electronic distribution’. This should retain the original image quality.

After uploading your original document e.g. a Word (docx) file, Turnitin creates a PDF preview that can be used by markers to add feedback comments to. You may notice some elements may have moved slightly, which can be an issue if you are relying on precise placement of elements such as an arrow pointing to a specific part of a diagram, or a circle highlighting a point on a graph.

If you notice this, try saving the original document as a PDF version first, then submit this to Turnitin. This should prevent the formatting changing when uploaded to Turnitin.

If you’ve already made the submission, make sure you inform your department. If notified of this issue, markers can download your original file with the correct formatting and refer to this when marking.

Have you noticed any differences in the word counts in your assignments from your original uploaded document and the word count that Turnitin thinks you have. The discrepancy occurs in the way that Turnitin looks at the content. If you check the word count in a Microsoft Word document and then convert it to a PDF and then upload – there will be a difference.

Word counts should always be taken from the original source document and you should always retain this document.

There are ten levels of complexity for AI-generated content. In HE we should look at levels 7 and above.

1. Early primary school 
2. Late primary school 
3. Early middle school 
4. Late middle school 
5. Early high school 
6. Late high school
7. Undergraduate lower division
8. Undergraduate upper division 
9. Graduate level 
10. Advanced PhD level 

There are ten levels of complexity for AI-generated content. In HE we should look at levels 7 and above.

1. Early primary school 
2. Late primary school 
3. Early middle school 
4. Late middle school 
5. Early high school 
6. Late high school
7. Undergraduate lower division
8. Undergraduate upper division 
9. Graduate level 
10. Advanced PhD level 

If you have a question that has been graded in a test and you decide, for whatever reason, that you want to give everyone who completed it a full mark. In edit mode view the question – click on the three dots and select “Edit/Regrade” option – this will had a check box next to the text “Give full credit to everyone” – if you select the box and save then everyone who took that question will get the full marks.

New functionality has been added to the standard Blackboard Assignment – which gives you the ability to enable Turnitin. See our Blackboard Assignments with Turnitin guide for further details.

If you have your content organised into folders in your file store – left mouse click and drag the folder onto the top of the Blackboard content area. It will hover over areas and if you are happy with the location release the hold on the folder. This will add the folder and all the content directly into Blackboard.

Yes you can do this now. This is a new feature to add questions into a Blackboard document and allow students to get instant feedback. Read the Guide on Knowledge Check Questions.

Yes you can add a link for students to click on and access any live Module Evaluations. To do this Add Content > Content Market and click on the plus button in the Student MEQ Link – Course Tool item. The icon is a royal blue square with the text blue on it. Make it available to students and refer to it during any module evaluation window. Remember that as a Staff member you can access all module evaluation tools from the Tools menu in the black left hand panel.

Reviewing student activity helps inform decisions in academic disputes and aids in troubleshooting. You can also analyze the course participation of students at risk. Instructors and other higher roles can use the student activity log to check what a particular student did in a course.  Go to the Gradebook and locate the student. You view the activity from the third Activity tab and download the results if needed.

https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor/Ultra/Performance/Student_Activity_Log

Blackboard has a default maximum file upload size of 2560 MB.

In order to receive emails when new posts are added to discussion boards, you must:

1. Ensure you’ve clicked the Follow button on the Discussion board.
2. Enable Discussion activity notifications in your Notification Settings. You must set this in both:
   • Stream notifications: tick all of the Discussion activity options
   • Email notifications: set it to email me straight away and tick all of the Discussion activity options.

Start in the module you want to copy to and click the top set of 3 dots next to Course Content. Select Copy Content, then locate the module where the original source material is and eventually open file location of the folder/document/assessment you want to copy in the sidebar menu on the right.

All courses in Blackboard tend to be related to taught module codes, however, there are occasions where a non-standard course might be appropriate. Please read the Guide for getting approval for a non Standard course.

If you wish to remove an Instructor, Module Administrator or any other staff member from your course. You must first edit their role to be a Student. To do this open the Class Register – locate the staff member and click on the three dots at the end of the row and select Member Information. From the side panel that opens revealing that persons information, click on the Role drop down and select Student from the list. Then save the change. Then repeat access but at that point click on the Delete icon in the Member card to remove member.

Module Leaders have a role of Primary. This means that they appear at the top of the list of Instructors. To do this open the course register and view all. View all Instructors and next to the Module Leaders entry – click on the three dots to edit member settings – once the panel has opened tick the Make Primary selection box. This works with 2 Primary aka 2 Module Leaders.

Yes there is – it is a single App for both Staff and Students. From 8 October 2024 the app is called Blackboard and is available on the Apple and Google Play Stores. If you have the old Learn App you just need to update it. You have to enter under institution: Durham University Ultra to then authenticate with your CIS userid and password. It is 2FA so you will need to approve it.

Note – we do not advocate you doing any high stake assessment submissions on the App – always use a desktop/laptop.

The search icon is so subtle you may have missed it! Look to the top right of the screen and you will see a Magnifying Glass icon which, when clicked, displays a search box

Please note that the following files are not permitted to be uploaded directly to Blackboard. These file types are:

.webm,.mkv,.flv,.vob,.ogv,.ogg,.drc,.gif,.gifv,.mng,.avi,.MTS,.M2TS,.TS,.mov,.qt,.wmv,.yuv,.rm,.rmvb,.viv,.asf,.amv,.mp4,.m4p,.m4v,.mp2,.mpe,.mpv,.mpg,.mpeg,.m2v,.svi,.3gp,.3g2,.mxf,.roq,.nsv,.f4v,.f4p,.f4a,.f4b for video

.aa,.aac,.aax,.act,.aiff,.alac,.amr,.ape,.au,.awb,.dss,.dvf,.flac,.gsm,.iklax,.ivs,.m4a,.m4b,.mmf,.movpkg,.mp3,.mpc,.msv,.nmf,.mogg,.opus,.ra,.raw,.rf64,.sln,.tta,.voc,.vox,.wav,.wma,.wv,.web,.8svx,.cda for audio

Instead please utilise the Panopto/Encore tools.

If you have set a preferred name with HR then this should appear on your Microsoft Teams option – to get it to appear in Blackboard you need to edit your profile and where your name appears click on the pencil icon that appears to edit it. Tick to show the Additional Name (which is your set preferred name). View the Blackboard Help Guide on Edit Your Profile.

If you haven’t set a preferred name then please email HR and request a preferred name – once they have made the change – and you can see it filter through to Microsoft Teams you can then edit your Blackboard profile to set the Additional name to make your preferred name appear.

Whichever Faculty you are in please email:
Faculty of Arts & Humanities – [email protected]
Faculty of Social Sciences & Health – [email protected]
Faculty of Business– [email protected]
Faculty of Science – [email protected]
Colleges & Wider Student Experience Division – [email protected]
Professional Support Services – [email protected]

duo, also known as Durham University Online, was the older version of the current Virtual Learning Environment Blackboard. Instead of copying all the content/courses from duo to the new platform Blackboard – we archived courses and loaded duo onto a cloud platform enabling students who took courses in the past the ability to view their course content. This will eventually be archived. If you have any queries about duo then please contact the IT Service Desk.

CIS is responsible for the rollover of courses (copying course into a new shell) and this process typically occurs in early July, based upon a list that is provided by departmental administrators. Speak in the first instance to your Admin team who liaise with CIS.

You must not use the paperclip icon in a content editor to “attach” any audio or video files when uploading work to be assessed. You should always follow the instructions given in the assignment and upload first to Panopto. This ensures your work is in the correct place to be assessed.

Blackboard has a default maximum file upload size of 2560 MB.

In order to receive emails when new posts are added to discussion boards, you must:

1. Ensure you’ve clicked the Follow button on the Discussion board.
2. Enable Discussion activity notifications in your Notification Settings. You must set this in both:
   • Stream notifications: tick all of the Discussion activity options
   • Email notifications: set it to email me straight away and tick all of the Discussion activity options.

Whatever the reason for not being able to submit – contact your Department Administrator without delay to let them know you are having difficulty submitting. They know the assignment and how it was set up.

If you are trying on your own device then this is very difficult to investigation so our typical advice is to find a computer in the Library or a computer in the TLC (Teaching & Learning Centre) and try and upload from there because we can look at the logs on the machine.

The Department will listen to what you have tried and they will contact CIS if they feel there is something wrong and CIS will find out what is happening.

Yes there is – it is a single App for both Staff and Students. From 8 October 2024 the app is called Blackboard and is available on the Apple and Google Play Stores. If you have the old Learn App you just need to update it. You have to enter under institution: Durham University Ultra to then authenticate with your CIS userid and password. It is 2FA so you will need to approve it.

Note – we do not advocate you doing any high stake assessment submissions on the App – always use a desktop/laptop.

The search icon is so subtle you may have missed it! Look to the top right of the screen and you will see a Magnifying Glass icon which, when clicked, displays a search box

Please note that the following files are not permitted to be uploaded directly to Blackboard. These file types are:

.webm,.mkv,.flv,.vob,.ogv,.ogg,.drc,.gif,.gifv,.mng,.avi,.MTS,.M2TS,.TS,.mov,.qt,.wmv,.yuv,.rm,.rmvb,.viv,.asf,.amv,.mp4,.m4p,.m4v,.mp2,.mpe,.mpv,.mpg,.mpeg,.m2v,.svi,.3gp,.3g2,.mxf,.roq,.nsv,.f4v,.f4p,.f4a,.f4b for video

.aa,.aac,.aax,.act,.aiff,.alac,.amr,.ape,.au,.awb,.dss,.dvf,.flac,.gsm,.iklax,.ivs,.m4a,.m4b,.mmf,.movpkg,.mp3,.mpc,.msv,.nmf,.mogg,.opus,.ra,.raw,.rf64,.sln,.tta,.voc,.vox,.wav,.wma,.wv,.web,.8svx,.cda for audio

Instead please utilise the Panopto/Encore tools.

When you registered for the University you will have been asked to set a Preferred name. If you did this and your name is correct on Microsoft Teams but not in Blackboard then you need to edit your Blackboard profile name and show to display the Additional Name (which is your preferred name). Read the Blackboard Help Guide on Editing your Profile.

If you did not set a Preferred name at the point of registration then you can change this by using Banner Self Service.

duo, also known as Durham University Online, was the older version of the current Virtual Learning Environment Blackboard. Instead of copying all the content/courses from duo to the new platform Blackboard – we archived courses and loaded duo onto a cloud platform enabling students who took courses in the past the ability to view their course content. This will eventually be archived. If you have any queries about duo then please contact the IT Service Desk.

This can be quite common due to the variety of ways that LaTeX documents can be authored. Based upon early testing, we’ve found that this can be caused by one of the following issues:

1. Using unsupported LaTeX packages – Chirun supports many LaTeX packages, but it may be that you’re using something that isn’t yet supported. To check, visit the LaTeX compatibility — Chirun 0.8.0 documentation web page.
2. Commands specific to PDF output – Your document may have a very long preamble, containing commands which change the layout of the page or font sizes and styles. While these are important for the PDF output, they will not have any effect in HTML output. To get around this, you can create short conditional statements using \ifplastex.
3. Multi-file naming issue – In LaTeX, the \input{name} command is used to include the content of another file into your main file. However, Chirun only works correctly if the file name.tex does not exist. If it finds name.tex, Chirun expects it to include a special LaTeX command called \begin{document}, which is typically only in the main LaTeX file, not in files meant for \input. To fix this issue, rename all input files to remove the .tex extension. This ensures Chirun doesn’t try to process the input files incorrectly.

Visit the diagnosing errors in Chirun packages section of the staff guide for further information.

Unless you specify otherwise your Encore recordings will appear online as soon as they have uploaded and processed. This normally takes less than an hour, but at times of peak activity, this may take several hours.

See the Audio Visual Team’s information on Encore-enabled rooms on Sharepoint (internal Durham users only, login required)

You can find out more information about Encore on the Service Catalogue (internal Durham users only, login required)

For information requests please contact the Encore operational team: [email protected] 

For technical support please contact the IT Service Desk: https://servicedesk.durham.ac.uk/)

You can access the full lecture recording policy on Sharepoint (internal Durham users only, login required)

Lecture Recording Good Practice Guidance (internal Durham users only, login required)

Yes. There are two ways to do that. The simplest is to use this link: https://app.feedbackfruits.com/ opens a new window to the analytics dashboard. If you are not already logged in to Blackboard and FeedbackFruits, it will ask for your email and then send you a “magic link” to take you straight in.
Once you are in the dashboard, select the Courses link under the heading INSIGHTS and then pick a course to see all the activity data.

In future the answer may be yes, but at the moment for us it is no. FeedbackFruits have a Turnitin integration option that is currently undergoing beta-testing. We have not enabled this feature (yet) during the pilot. If this is something that is key to your workflows, please get in touch with a member of DCAD.

The vendor provides guidance for each tool within its online help and also publishes a general statement at: Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools opens in a new window

They have also published a Statement about their WCAG Compliance opens in a new window which shows compliance at different levels.

The vendor provides guidance for each tool within its online help and also publishes a general statement at: Accessibility: Within FeedbackFruits Tools opens in a new window

They have also published a Statement about their WCAG Compliance opens in a new window which shows compliance at different levels.

Yes! You can control the visibility of assignments using the Sections feature. Visit our Using Sections in Gradescope guide for further details.

Yes! Go to the Review Grades page within the Gradescope Dashboard and look at the Viewed column. This should show a green eye icon for any students who have viewed their feedback. For further information, visit Gradescope’s guidance.

Yes, it’s possible to submit on behalf of a student. For instructions visit the Gradescope guide How to submit on behalf of a student.

Marking by Section is not possible if you’ve enabled anonymous grading.

This is likely to be an issue with the Safari browser on a Mac. By default the browser may be blocking third-party cookies, which prevents certain apps like Gradescope from opening.

To get around this issue, you can either:

Turn off the option to prevent cross-site tracking

1. In your Safari browser, go to the Settings
2. Turn-off ‘Prevent cross-site tracking’ by unticking the box.

Use a different browser

Alternatively use a different browser such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

Yes, there’s an option within the assignment settings to configure how you want the rubrics to display to students.

You may notice that the link to a Gradescope Assignment shows ‘No due date’. This is a known issue that has been raised as a feature request with Gradescope Support. This should not affect functionality, as the due dates for Gradescope Assignments can still be found in the assignment itself.

This is usually a result of students using a pencil that doesn’t generate enough contrast when scanned. Experienced users of Gradescope recommend giving students clear guidance in advance of their assignment or exam. A black pen can help address this issue.

They are essentially the same assignment type, but the difference is who uploads the work to Gradescope. The Exams assignment type is automatically configured for Instructors to upload the work. Whereas a Homework / Problem Set is automatically configured for students to upload the work to Gradescope. The two are interchangeable, so if for instance you start creating an Exam (Instructors upload) and then realise you should have created Homework / Problem Set (Students upload), you can simply edit the assignment and change the settings.

This is likely to be an issue with the Safari browser on a Mac. By default the browser may be blocking third-party cookies, which prevents certain apps like Gradescope from opening.

To get around this issue, you can either:

Turn off the option to prevent cross-site tracking

1. In your Safari browser, go to the Settings
2. Turn-off ‘Prevent cross-site tracking’ by unticking the box.

Use a different browser

Alternatively use a different browser such as Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge.

This is not yet configured at Durham University, but there are plans for it to be enabled soon. Your department will advise you once this is available to use.

You may notice that the link to a Gradescope Assignment shows ‘No due date’. This is a known issue that has been raised as a feature request with Gradescope Support. This should not affect functionality, as the due dates for Gradescope Assignments can still be found in the assignment itself.

Students to not need to create an account. Their access is granted through the Blackboard Course they access the Numbas Exam from.

The Numbas developers occassionally run online training sessions. All of their sessions are recorded and available to rewatch on the Numbas Documentation website.

If there is demand for training on a specific part of Numbas, let a member of the DCAD Digital Learning Team know. We are happy to approach the Numbas developers and ask if they’d be willing to run a bespoke session for staff.

You can access PebblePad in one of two ways:

• If a lecturer has asked you to use PebblePad on your module, look in your course on Blackboard. They may have added a link with the PebblePad icon that will open it for you and automatically sign you in.
• Alternatively you can try and access PebblePad directly at: https://v3.pebblepad.co.uk/login/durham. When prompted, choose the option saying that you have an IT account at Durham University and it will use single sign on to log you into the system.

You can access PebblePad in one of two ways:

• If a lecturer has asked you to use PebblePad on your module, look in your course on Blackboard. They may have added a link with the PebblePad icon that will open it for you and automatically sign you in.
• Alternatively you can try and access PebblePad directly at: https://v3.pebblepad.co.uk/login/durham. When prompted, choose the option saying that you have an IT account at Durham University and it will use single sign on to log you into the system.

If you have already submitted your work for assessment then you do not need to share any more. As long as your workbook sitting in your Asset Store has the Blue Bar at the top indicating that it has been shared for assessment – you can just concentrate on updating your work until the deadline. You should never manually share a file into the workspace as you will then not be able to auto share your workbook. Listen to the advice from your Teacher who will give you guidance on the process as well on what you are expected to do.

If you have submitted your workbook – the likelihood is that the permission to remove a submission will not exist, however, if it does and you have removed it. How do I re-submit my workbook?

Your workbook will now not autoshare – so you need to manually share your workbook for assessment. Following the dedicated guide for doing this. Help Guide on Sharing for Assessment

Check that you have actually submitted the workbook. Look in your Asset Store from the Pebblepad Dashboard and look for the workbook to be assessed. If should state that it has been shared for assessment in the details panel. Then open the workbook and see if the Blue Bar appears along the top to indicate that it has been shared for assessment. If not – go back the Resource Store and locate the original workbook and it should open with the option to Share for Assessment. It now becomes yours and you should access it from the Asset store from now on. For more details read the Help Guide on Auto-Submitting work.

You can view students’ progress in peerScholar by selecting the Student Progress & Grading tab at the top. This provides an overview of students’ in each phase and their grades (if they have been assigned one). You can also see the distribution by clicking View Distribution at the top right corner.

The Student Progress & Grading page enables an Instructor to:

• submit on behalf of student (select the submission status to Edit to add or remove)
• mark work as submitted / not submitted
• allow late access
• reset the phase (for Assess)

If you are within the submission deadline, you can amend your submission or feedback entry using the Edit Phase option (shown in screenshot below) or by selecting the pencil icon in other areas or by simply accessing the phase. You can choose to save your progress, using Save draft, but remember to submit to complete the phase.

Note: You cannot make any changes to your work/submission, after the submission deadline.

Once you have completed phase, it is indicated with a green tick and your submission date and time is timestamped. Selecting a completed phase allows you to view your submission or feedback you have added for your peers.

There may be instances where your answer text reaches the character limit and ends with three dots to show that there is text missing.

To fix this:

1. Locate the affected activity in Poll Everywhere
2. Click Edit
3. From the options at the top, choose Visual Settings
4. Check the option Auto-fit content
5. Updating slides in Powerpoint:
   • Windows users: In PowerPoint go to the Poll Everywhere tab and choose Sync. If this doesn’t fix all slides, they’ll need to be reinserted.
   • Mac users: Affected slides will need to be reinserted.

If your responses are limited to 25, you’re on the free plan. To remove this restriction, you need to request a Poll Everywhere license from the Service Desk.

No, only staff members need accounts to use Poll Everywhere. As a student you will join using a QR code or web address. You will typically respond anonymously.

Details of any recently discovered bugs (and fixes) are available on the Turnitin Known Issues page opens a new window.
The products that the University uses are Feedback Studio and Similarity Check.

New functionality has been added to the standard Blackboard Assignment – which gives you the ability to enable Turnitin. See our Blackboard Assignments with Turnitin guide for further details.

No, unfortunately Durham’s Turnitin licence only covers submissions by students for assessed work.

Staff who would like to submit their writing to a plagiarism detection service may want consider using iThenticate (an additional Turnitin tool), for plagiarism prevention tool in published works. This comes at a cost – based on the number of submissions.

For more details please consult the iThenticate website opens a new window.

There may be times when a Turnitin Assignment has been marked, but the grade later needs to be removed. Turnitin allows the mark to be cleared, but unfortunately it remains visible in the Blackboard Gradebook, which only accepts numerical values. The ‘Resync grade’ option in Turnitin does not resolve this issue. As a workaround, we suggest entering a score of 0 in the Blackboard Gradebook and inform the student that the grade is under review, explaining that the visible score is temporary. This ensures that individual marks can be withheld when necessary.

No. You should access Turnitin from a link in Blackboard. If you are presented with a page asking you to log in to Turnitin (perhaps when trying to add a link to, or access a Turnitin assignment) do not create an account. This will fail and is happening because of a bug. Try logging out of Blackboard and then back into it. If that doesn’t fix it then you need to report this to the IT Service Desk and give the system time and CIS will chase them to get this resolved.

No we don’t. We chose not to enable this feature because we don’t believe it fits with the University’s approach to assessment. Unlike accusations of plagiarism where the source documents exist, you can’t definitively match student work back to generative AI output. The detection tools are closed systems which makes them exceptionally hard to verify. There have been studies showing that AI detector results are biased against certain demographics (though note that in 2023 Turnitin claim that their detector is not affected). There are easy ways to defeat these tools. This is an arms race that the detectors can’t win.

There is a difference between similar sounding labels used by Turnitin: Remove and Delete.

If you Remove a submission it is hidden from sight, but behind the scenes the system retains it.
If you Delete a submission, it will also disappear, but this is because it has been removed from the system.

If you choose the option Delete, all traces will be automatically removed from the system after 30 days, meaning it cannot be restored.

In most case we would suggest you choose Remove rather than Delete.

Turnitin allows an instructor from another university or institution to make a paper view request. This may happen if student work that they are marking returns a match on a paper submitted by a Durham student (past or present). This email has been sent to you, because the Durham student’s paper was submitted to a course you teach or have taught on. The email includes a brief recap of the assignment (the title, submission date, and class title). It also contains basic information about the matching paper, such as the name of the instructor who made the request and the similarity score.

A full plain-text version of the original paper (as it was submitted by the student) is included in the email. To share the original paper with the person who has made the request, reply to the email (with attachments) and it will be sent directly to them.

This request will have been sent to all Instructors on the course. Generally the Module Leader should be the only one to respond. Please note that there is no obligation to respond to a received request.

To find out more about paper view requests. please consult this detailed guide from Turnitin:
Managing Paper View Requests opens a new window.

When you upload your assignment, Turnitin converts Word files to PDF in order to generate a preview. This can cause issues when the document includes images with transparency such as PNG. Images get compressed and may appear pixelated or as black boxes.

To avoid this, export your Word document as a PDF and choose the option ‘Best for printing‘, rather than ‘Best for electronic distribution’. This should retain the original image quality.

From September 2023 – the ability to upload on behalf of a non-enrolled student was removed by Turnitin. So this functionality no longer exists. Each upload must be tied to a student.

 A service desk call should be raised with CIS at this link

Turnitin will quietly set courses to read-only mode after 12 months. If this happens, when you open a piece of work for marking from the Assignment Inbox, you will see a popup like this

To sort this, you need to exit from marking and carry out a task that causes Turnitin to switch your course back into live mode.

• Create a new Turnitin assignment in the course. Don’t worry about the settings, just set a name and save it.
• Return to Blackboard and ensure this is set as hidden from students.
• Click the link to launch the new assignment and display the Assignment Inbox
• Switch to the Analytics tab – this will force a sync. You should the message ‘Your students are still busy working on their assignments. Come back later, or refresh to check again.’
• Close the assignment to return to Blackboard.
• Delete the new hidden Turnitin assignment you have just created.
• You should now be able to mark the real assignment, without the annoying Read Only mode popup.

The colours are an indication of similarity:

Light blue: 0% matching text
Dark blue: 1-24% matching text
Yellow: 25-49% matching text
Orange: 50-74% matching text
Red: 75-100% matching text

There is no ‘magic number’. A high similarity score does not always suggest that a piece of writing has been plagiarised, just as a low similarity score does not always indicate that no plagiarism has occurred. Staff judgement is always required.

Consider the following scenarios:

• Submitting a document of considerable size could result in a 0% similarity score with a report that still contains matches. This is because the similarity score has been rounded down to 0%, rather than being exactly 0%.
• You may have submitted multiple drafts of the same paper to your institution’s private repository, meaning your final draft has resulted in a score of 100%. To avoid this issue, we advise that you only submit your final draft to the private repository.
• An individual within your institution has managed to acquire a copy of your document. They submit this document to the institution’s private repository and receive a similarity score of 25%. You submit your original document a week later to the private repository but receive a 100% similarity score.

When a student uploads an original document e.g. a Word (docx) file, Turnitin creates a PDF preview that can be used by markers to add feedback comments to. You may notice some elements may have moved slightly, which can be an issue if you are relying on precise placement of elements such as an arrow pointing to a specific part of a diagram, or a circle highlighting a point on a graph.

We recommend, you download the student’s original file and check if the formatting is more accurate in this version. If so, advise markers to refer to the original when marking.

If you concerns this may affect future assignments, instruct students to upload a PDF version of their document instead. This should prevent the formatting changing when uploaded to Turnitin.

​If you have accidentally submitted the wrong file to Turnitin, go back to the submission screen. If a ‘Resubmit’ button appears, you may click this to resubmit your assignment.

If this button does not appear, this means that resubmission is not permitted. Contact your department for guidance as soon as possible.

Turnitin only accepts one document submission. If you need to submit multiple files try and combine them into one document or if different file formats – then zip together. Always contact your Department for advice.

Yes the teaching staff can see that you have viewed the feedback that they have provided for you through a Turnitin assignment. It is always important to view the feedback that has been written for you to help you improve for future submissions.

Whatever the reason for not being able to submit – contact your Department Administrator without delay to let them know you are having difficulty submitting. They know the assignment and how it was set up.

If you are trying on your own device then this is very difficult to investigation so our typical advice is to find a computer in the Library or a computer in the TLC (Teaching & Learning Centre) and try and upload from there because we can look at the logs on the machine.

The Department will listen to what you have tried and they will contact CIS if they feel there is something wrong and CIS will find out what is happening.

You have made a submission that is incompatible with the Turnitin system. Typically, this happens in the case of an image or a scanned file. If you are trying to submit a PDF file, it needs to be created from a text document. We do not accept PDFs in image format. In order to test whether your PDF is a text document, open it in Adobe Acrobat and click on the Select Text option at the top of the screen. Proceed to highlight the text of your document with your mouse (these options may vary with PDF-reading programs other than Adobe Acrobat). If you are not able to highlight any text, your PDF is an image and does not contain text.

Turnitin does not accept files which are larger than 100MB, or more than 800 pages long.

It’s often pictures in documents that cause the file size to get too big. 

If you can’t submit your file via Turnitin, speak to your department as soon as possible for advice. They may suggest that you:

• remove images from your document 
• save the file as a rich text or plain text file to make the file smaller for originality checking only
• compress the images to make them smaller

To compress images in Microsoft Word documents: 

1. Go to File and Save As
2. When choosing where to save the file, a Tools option appears at the bottom of the screen. Click the downward arrow and select Compress Pictures
3. Place a tick in the box beside Delete cropped areas of pictures and set Target output to ‘Screen (150 ppi): good for Web pages and projectors’
4. Click OK and then save the file with a different name.

This will reduce the file size considerably

When you upload your assignment, Turnitin converts Word files to PDF in order to generate a preview. This can cause issues when the document includes images with transparency such as PNG. Images get compressed and may appear pixelated or as black boxes.

To avoid this, export your Word document as a PDF and choose the option ‘Best for printing‘, rather than ‘Best for electronic distribution’. This should retain the original image quality.

After uploading your original document e.g. a Word (docx) file, Turnitin creates a PDF preview that can be used by markers to add feedback comments to. You may notice some elements may have moved slightly, which can be an issue if you are relying on precise placement of elements such as an arrow pointing to a specific part of a diagram, or a circle highlighting a point on a graph.

If you notice this, try saving the original document as a PDF version first, then submit this to Turnitin. This should prevent the formatting changing when uploaded to Turnitin.

If you’ve already made the submission, make sure you inform your department. If notified of this issue, markers can download your original file with the correct formatting and refer to this when marking.

Have you noticed any differences in the word counts in your assignments from your original uploaded document and the word count that Turnitin thinks you have. The discrepancy occurs in the way that Turnitin looks at the content. If you check the word count in a Microsoft Word document and then convert it to a PDF and then upload – there will be a difference.

Word counts should always be taken from the original source document and you should always retain this document.