Turnitin provides tutors with a feature-rich environment for marking, annotating, and commenting on student papers. It is accessed by following the steps below.
In the relevant course, use the course menu to navigate to the Gradebook. Select the title of the assignment you wish to begin marking.
This will open the Turnitin Inbox for that assignment. Select the pencil icon in the Grade column for the paper you wish to open first.
The Turnitin Feedback Studio view will open in a new browser window or tab.
The remainder of this guide provides an overview of the Grademark features. Use the link below to experience a demo environment of Feedback Studio provided by Turnitin.
NOTE
Carry out all grading as though all late submissions have an extension unless you definitely know that no extensions have been agreed. Once anonymous grading is complete, student names can be revealed and any grades capped before releasing them to students. Please see the later section of this guide, 'Releasing Turnitin grades and feedback to students' for further information.
Turnitin only accepts numeric grades. These will be converted into letter grades in the grade centre if the earlier section of this guide 'Setting up the gradebook' has been followed when first creating the assignment. If it has not, please refer to that section now.
To grade the assignment, enter the corresponding grade value out of 100 into the grade box on the top-right of the Turnitin Feedback Studio view.
The grade values are listed in the table below. Please note the slight differences between the Postgraduate and Undergraduate scales, due to the lack of a D grade at Postgraduate level.
| Letter Grade | Undergraduate numeric grade | Postgraduate numeric grade |
|---|---|---|
| A+ | 90 | 90 |
| A | 78 | 77 |
| A- | 73 | 72 |
| B+ | 68 | 68 |
| B | 65 | 65 |
| B- | 61 | 61 |
| C+ | 58 | 58 |
| C | 55 | 55 |
| C- | 51 | 51 |
| D+ | 48 | n/a |
| D | 45 | n/a |
| D- | 41 | n/a |
| F+ | 38 | 47 |
| F | 27 | 36 |
| F- | 13 | 14 |
| ZZ | 4 | 4 |
| LG | 3 | 3 |
| NG | 2 | 2 |
| AG | 1 | 1 |
| G | 0 | 0 |
Below is an explanation of G grade variants:
ZZ: Grade currently suspended pending an academic misconduct investigation.
LG: Work submitted more than one week late, therefore outside of the one week timeframe allowed where late submissions are capped at a D-.
NG: A submission was made, but it contained nothing of merit.
AG: The work submitted was awarded a G grade following the outcome of the academic misconduct panel.
G: Nothing submitted.
Note
It is important to use the exact numbers shown in the schema table above. For example, for an Undergraduate C-, you would enter 51. If you were to enter a 54, the schema would apply a C in the grade centre. The numbers shown are the centre value of each range for that letter grade, not the boundary value of each range.
It is equally important to ensure that the assignment is graded out of 100. If you need to change this in a Turnitin assignment, please refer to the second section of this guide 'Checking or changing the settings on a Turnitin submission point'.
Turnitin features several tools for providing student feedback to each paper: inline text comments, Quickmark comments, a feedback summary, a voice recording, and qualitative rubrics. Each feature is available from the Grademark layer in Feedback Studio:
The guidance below describes the basics surrounding each type. Visit the links at the end of the section for step-by-step guidance from the Turnitin website.
Inline comments allow you to leave text directly on top of your student's paper. Focus or click anywhere on a paper to reveal the in-context marking tool; choose the 'inline' button and then begin typing your comment. The comment will automatically be saved.
Bubble comments are similar in that they appear within the document, but they are presented in a pop-up box which arguably makes it easier to read both the original text and the comment over it. The button for bubble comments is represented with the speech bubble icon.
Quickmark comments can streamline your annotation by providing sets of frequently used inline feedback, which can be dragged onto the student paper or added inline with the tick icon when clicking or focusing on an area of a paper.
It is also possible to create your own custom sets of Quickmarks to speed up your inline commenting. This is achieved by using the Quickmark Manager. Please refer to the links at the end of this section for step-by-step instructions on using and creating Quickmarks.
Overall feedback comments can be recorded in the feedback summary panel. Entered text is saved automatically. It is also possible to record up to three minutes of audio if you would prefer to leave voice comments. Full details can be found by following the feedback summary links at the end of this section.
Qualitative rubrics can be used to provide students with a concise indication of their levels of achievement against a set of criteria. The use of rubrics is covered in detail in a later section of this guide 'Using Turnitin Rubrics'.
