TurnItIn - Make a Date!

TurnItIn – Let's Make a Date!

TurnItIn, a powerful 3rd-party tool for plagiarism prevention, integrates seamlessly with your D2L Dropbox Assignment Submission folders. There is a tab in the Submission folder that consolidates the TurnItIn-specific settings for the folder. There is also software that collects some of your standard dropbox settings -- title, description, dates -- and uses them to populate the corresponding fields on the TurnItIn side. This correspondence, however, is not 1:1, particularly where dates are concerned. Improvements in date management for the TurnItIn integration was the focus of a Summer 2016 "Continuous Delivery" update. In this blog, we will consider what the update means for Dropbox Assignment settings and review some date basics.

Date Disambiguation

There are three date management fields in the D2L Assignment Dropbox: "Start", "Due", and "End". These can be set in the "Restrictions" tab of the Submission fielder, or (efficiently) with bulk edit in the list of all Submission Folders. The "Start" and "End" dates control student access to to the Dropbox Assignment Submission Folder. The D2L "Due" date does not affect access, but it is important in communicating expectations to students. There is no technical requirement for the use of dates in D2L Submission folders, and an instructor may choose to populate 0, 1, 2, or 3 of these date fields.

For a TurnItIn-enabled Submission folder, dates in the D2L "Start" and "End" date fields are supplied to TurnItIn. The D2L "Due" date is not used by TurnItIn. Somewhat confusingly, in TurnItIn itself the "End" date from D2L is called the Due date.

While D2L does not require dates for Submission folders, TurnItIn does require dates for the beginning and end. This summer, as part of release 10.6.3, D2L rolled out a new process for populating these TurnItIn date fields for Submission Folders in which the "Start" and/or "End" date is blank. The results are summarized in the list below.

TurnItIn Dates, as Supplied by D2L

Note: in the list below "Today" refers to the date that TurnItIn is enabled for the Dropbox folder in a particular course offering.

• No dates are provided in D2L. Here are TurnItIn's dates:
  • StartDate: Today.
  • EndDate: 6 months from Today.
  • All dates editable within More Options in TurnItIn as well as in D2L.
• Start Date only is provided in D2L. Here are TurnItIn's dates:
  • StartDate: Same as D2L.
  • EndDate: 6 months from D2L StartDate.
  • Dates are not editable in TurnItIn More Options (but are editable in D2L).
• End Date only is set in D2L. TurnItIn Dates are:
  • StartDate: Today
  • EndDate: D2L's End Date + 1 day
  • The StartDate in TurnItIn is editable in TurnItIn "More Options". (All dates are editable in D2L.)
• Both dates are set in D2L. TurnItIn dates are:
  • StartDate: D2L Start Date
  • EndDate: D2L End Date + 1 day
  • Dates are not editable in TurnItIn "More Options" but are editable in D2L.

TurnItIn Date FAQ

 

What happens if I add or change a Dropbox Assignment "Start" or "End" date in D2L after TurnItIn is already set up?

After editing the dates, click into the TurnItIn tab and then click "More Options in TurnItIn". This pushes the new information to TurnItIn, changing the corresponding date fields on the TurnItIn site.

Do TurnItIn dates block students from submitting work to the D2L Dropbox Assignment?

No, access to the Dropbox Assignment in D2L is not affected by TurnItIn dates. TurnItIn dates control whether or not student submissions are checked for originality in TurnItIn.

What about Special Access? I don't see that in the TurnItIn settings.

There is no mechanism to transmit special access dates to TurnItIn. But if you set special access in a D2L Dropbox Assignment folder, and also check to "allow late submissions" in the TurnItIn settings, then when your students submit their work it will be checked for originality, whether it is a regular submission or a "special" one.

Do you have a video that I can watch to learn more about setting up TurnItIn?

TurnItIn Integration® - Create a Submission Folder and Enable TurnItIn