exclude assignment template turnitin

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Excluding assignment templates from within turnitin.

Occasionally students are provided with templates which are submitted alongside their assignment. If all students within the unit submit the same template, it will influence their Similarity Report. Templates can be uploaded to the assignment settings prior to a students submissions, so that they can be automatically excluded from all student's Similarity Reports in that unit.

Adding a template for exclusion

We recommend entering your template for exclusion during assignment creation. If you are unable to do so, you can return to the assignment settings to enter or edit your template before the first student has submitted.

Press on More Options in Turnitin.

Scroll to the bottom of your Turnitin options and you will have two options to add your template for exclusion. You can either Upload a Template or create a  Custom Template.

Note: Press on Template Requirements to view file type, size etc.needed for your uploaded template.

To Upload a Template:

• Select Upload Template
• Choose which file to upload as your template and select Open.
• If you change your mind, select Clear Template and start again.

To Create a Custom Template:

• Select Create Custom Template
• Type your template or copay and paste across from another document. A word count of your template will be provided underneath.
• Select Edit Template to make changs or Clear Template to remove it completely.

Template exclusion in the Similarity Report

Template exclusions can be turned off for individual students in the assignment from the Similarity Report.

• Open the student's Similarity Report
• Select the Filters and Settings option from the sidebar as shown below.

• Uncheck the Exclude Assignment Template setting
• Press Apply changes.

Note: If the Exclude Assignment Template setting does not appear, it has not been enabled  in the assignment settings and can no longer be enabled for an assignment with submissions.

Turnitin new feature – exclude templates

Turnitin has recently added a new feature you can use when you create your assignments. In the Optional settings area of the set-up, you can find a section for Exclude assignment template . You can either upload a file or add text directly by using the ‘Create Custom Template’ button.

We strongly suggest that you use the Upload Template button to upload a file (.docx or PDF are recommended). You can add text directly in the custom template, but our testing showed that this wasn’t as consistent in excluding all of the content from the template.

Always pay attention to the total score of a similarity report! We used a template that includes a table for students to enter standard information such as user ID, module code, and module title. When we used this, we were able to add a new row in the table and add text in this row. The content in this row was not included in the similarity report – the exclusion tool assumed anything in the table ought to be included.

You can only add, edit, or remove the template before students submit files. Once any student has submitted work to the submission point, you cannot make any changes to this setting.

However, as always, you can adjust the exclusions in the Feedback Studio. To remove the template, go to the exclusion tab. Toggle off the option to Exclude Assignment Template and click Apply changes .

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Digital Education Office blog

Service announcements and essential information from the digital education office, new feature: exclude cover sheet or other text from turnitin similarity reports.

‘Exclude assignment template’ is a new option for Instructors which allows a template to be attached to a Turnitin assignment, the content of which will automatically be excluded from the Similarity Report. The template could, for example, include standard text or a cover sheet.

How to access this new feature? 

When setting up or editing a Turnitin assignment, ‘Exclude assignment template’ is found under Optional settings:

Figure 1: Exclude assignment template menu.

You have two options:

• Create and upload a template file, eg in a Word document.
• Click Create Custom Template and add text directly into the interface.

Make sure you check the template requirements:

• Templates must have at least 20 words of text.
• Uploaded file templates must be less than 100 MB.
• Accepted file types for upload: Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, PostScript, PDF, HTML, RTF, OpenOffice (ODT), Hangul (HWP), and plain text.

When you have added your template, submit the Turnitin settings as usual.

Please note that once a student has made a submission to the assignment the template for that assignment can no longer be edited.

If you have any questions, please contact [email protected] .

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Turnitin recommended settings checklist

Our checklists contain recommended turnitin assignment settings for a range of assessment requirements..

To find out in more detail about Turnitin settings, view our guide to setting up a Turnitin assignment .

We strongly recommend that you check your settings for each new assignment that you create even when using the save instructor defaults option in Additional settings.

Please discuss these questions in your course team to ensure a consistent student experience:

a. Will you mark / give feedback online? Student submissions should be marked consistently.

b. How will you handle late submissions? Academic and student feedback indicates that the workflow outlined in our guide provides the best student experience and involves the least work.

c. Will you mark anonymously? There's no University policy of anonymous marking for online submissions (except formal exams). However, some Schools / Course teams have a local policy. Please check with School / Course colleagues to ensure you're being consistent.

d. Is the assignment formative or summative? This is important as it affects whether you store student submissions on the Turnitin database when they upload assignments.

Recommended settings

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Excluding assignment templates

Occasionally students are provided with templates which are submitted alongside their assignment. If all students within the class submit the same template, it will influence their Similarity Report. Templates can be uploaded to the assignment settings so that they can be automatically excluded from all student's Similarity Report in that class.

Adding a template for exclusion

We recommend entering your template for exclusion during assignment creation. If you are unable to do so, you can return to the assignment settings to enter or edit your template before the first student has submitted.

There are two methods to enter a template for exclusion:

The " Would you like to save these options as defaults... " setting will not save the template exclusion setting for any following assignments.

Template requirements

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

Template exclusion in the Similarity Report

Template exclusions can be turned off for individual students in the assignment from the Similarity Report.

Open the student's Similarity Report.

Select the Filters and Settings option from the side bar.

Uncheck the Exclude Assignment Template setting.

Select New Report.

If the Exclude Assignment Template setting does not appear, it has not been enabled in the assignment settings and can no longer be enabled for an assignment with submissions.

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Turnitin in UB Learns

Published February 21, 2024

Ensuring your students uphold Academic Integrity Standards is an important part of being an instructor. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more prominent in everyday use, we need to be more vigilant in how our students are incorporating generative AI into their assignments.

UB Learns has a third party plagiarism tool called   Turnitin (TII). This tool allows instructors to choose whether to run student submissions through a program that checks for plagiarism, checks for AI-generated work and can be used to provide feedback to students.

The following information can be used to enable TII and use it to enhance your grading experience.

Enable Turnitin for your Assignments

If the concern is about plagiarism and AI for an assignment, it is important to first enable Turnitin through the “Manage Turnitin” setting. Instructors must enable Turnitin for each assignment separately. It is not possible to enable Turnitin for an entire course.

Enabling Turnitin on Assignments

1. choose the assignment you wish to add tii to, select edit assignment.

Click on the chevron next to the assignment you wish to enable Turnitin on, then select Edit Assignment.

When in the Assignments tool in UB Learns, click on the chevron next to the assignment you wish to enable Turnitin on. Next, click Edit Assignment from the pop-up menu.

2. Under Evaluation and Feedback, click on Manage Turnitin

Under Evaluation and Feedback, click on Manage Turnitin.

In the Edit Assignment window, expand Evaluation & Feedback . At the bottom, click the Manage Turnitin hyperlink.

3. Enable TII features, click Save

Select the Turnitin features you would like to enable for the assignment.

In the Turnitin Integration menu, select the integrations you would like to enable for the assignment. Options include:

• Enabling a Similarity Report .
• Enable feedback and grading within the Turnitin Feedback Studio

Once you have made your selections, click Save .

4. Verify the integrations are active

Once back in the Edit Assignment window, in the Evaluation & Feedback, you will see verification of  which Turnitin features are enabled. 

In the Edit Assignment window, under Evaluation & Feedback, you will now see which Turnitin integrations enabled for the assignment.

5. Select Save and Close

Once all integrations have been enabled for your assignment, click Save and Close in the Edit Assignment window.

Excluding Verbiage or Guidance From the Similarity Report

If the assignment has guidance or verbiage that is included with the submission, there is an option to create a template so that those words won’t count as part of the plagiarism detector. 

Enabling Exclusions in Turnitin

1. in the turnitin integrations window, select more options.

Click on More Options button in the Turnitin Integrations menu.

To exclude verbiage or guidance from being labelled as plagiarized in Turnitin, naviage to the Turnitin Integration menu for the assignment (see above). Once in the Turnitin Integration menu, click More Options . 

2. Under Exclude Assignment Template, upload an existing template or create a new template

Under Exclude Assignment Template, you can choose to upload an existing template or create a new template.

• Please note: If you choose Create Custom Template , you will have to manually type in the guidance or verbiage you would like to exclude from the plagiarism check.

3. Submit and Save

Once done, click Submit . Next, click Save in the Turnitin Integrations window. Finally, click Save and Close in the Assignment window.

Using Turnitin to Detect AI Use

When your students submit an assignment with TII enabled, it is important to review the submissions. The similarity report will not only show you any plagiarism it has detected, but it can also provide an estimate of how much AI-generated text a student has used in place of their writing. When a student submits the assignment, they will only receive a plagiarism report if it was enabled, but will not be given a suspected AI use score. Even if Turnitin shows a score of “0%” for similarity, the AI-use score might be different.

Turnitin Report in a Student Assignment Submission

An example submission with Turnitin Similarity Report Enabled. The score is 14%, which may seem low and neglible, but it does not show the AI use in the score. Click on the percentage to show the AI detection feature.  

This score of 14% may seem to be low, leading some instructors to not click on the Similarity Report. However, if you go into the report by clicking on the percentage, you will see a more in-depth analysis of the student’s work.

Turnitin Feedback Studio Side Bar

Here we see that even though the report had a low similarity, the AI Detector, located at the bottom of the list, indicates that 2% of the student writing could be AI generated.

The AI Detection is at the bottom of the list. It indicates that 2% of the student writing could be AI generated.

Caveat of Using Turnitin for AI Detection

Do not be quick to assume the AI check is accurate. TurnItIn acknowledges that low AI scores could indicate a false positive. We recommend reaching out to a student and initiating Academic Integrity protocols if the AI Writing Score is at least 35 - 45%. If the score is lower than this threshold, it is still important to reach out to the student and see if they utilized AI in creating their assignment.

This is the disclaimer for the Turnitin AI Detector. It specifically mentions that low scores have a higher likelihood of false positives.

Need additional help?

If you have any questions about how TII is integrated into UB Learns, please reach out to our UB Learns Support Team . You can  learn more about Turnitin at their website.

Additional Resources

Senior Learning Designer and LMS Support Specialist Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation

Associate Director Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation

Editor and Contributor

Project Manager for Communications and Outreach Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation

Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation 716-645-7700 [email protected]