When you submit an assignment for the first time, you will have to accept the terms and conditions for using Turnitin. When you first attempt to submit to a Moodle assignment you will see a link which asks you to accept the EULA (End-User Licence Agreement). Click on that link and scroll through the terms and conditions and then click the Accept button at the bottom. If you cannot see the terms and conditions straightaway, please reload the page in your web browser.

Have you ever submitted a TurnItIn file and got an “X” for your similarity report or even a big red error message? If this has happened to you, always contact the e-Learning Service Desk as soon as possible and we can help. Below are some of the more common reasons why this happens and what to do:

• TurnItIn doesn’t like your file’s name – Do not use and unusual characters in your filename, such as: \ / : * ? " < > | [ ] { } ), it is best to only use letter and numbers.
• You are using a file type it doesn’t like – This mainly happens for Mac users, please use Microsoft Office, if possible, as it is provided by the university, or make sure that when you save, you save as a Word or PowerPoint file.
• You’ve submitted a file that doesn’t contain enough words – This likely happens if you submit a Word file with a link to a Panopto video or an image as TurnItIn only generates a report for more than 20 words.

For more detailed information see the Self-Service portal guide to What to name your file and what file types are acceptable.

You can practise submitting an assignment and checking the similarity report that Turnitin produces using the Turnitin Practice assignment. You can find the link to the Moodle page with the practice assignment on either the Moodle Home Page or via the Useful links menu at the top of the Moodle screen. When you submit your assignment, a similarity report is produced after about 10-15 minutes. This will happen for your first three submissions to the same assignment in Moodle in any given 24-hour period. If you re-submit your assignment a fourth time, in the same 24 hours, the new similarity report will be available after 24 hours. The practice assignment has been set up so that your submitted assignment is not stored in the Turnitin repository of papers. This means that when you come to submit the same paper to the official assignment link in the course module in Moodle, Turnitin will not check for any similarities with the version of your work that you submitted to the practice assignment earlier.