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Controlling Release of Turnitin LTI Assignment Marks and Feedback

Overview

The way Turnitin integrates with Blackboard has been updated and Turnitin LTI Assignments have superseded Turnitin Direct Assignments. You can read more about the change here.

It’s important to be aware that students may be able to view their marks for a Turnitin LTI Assignments in two main locations, which are independent of each other:

  1. Their Assignment Dashboard’ for the Turnitin LTI Assignment (and from there, in Turnitin Feedback Studio);
  2. The assignment’s listing in their Blackboard ‘My Marks’ tool.

Additionally, students may be able to infer their marks in Turnitin LTI Assignments (and indeed in other kinds of assessment) from:

  1. Total columns visible in their ‘My Marks’ tool.

All other submission feedback which instructors may enter in Feedback Studio – rubrics, QuickMarks, comments, annotations etc – are accessible to students in Feedback Studio only.

1. Turnitin LTI Assignment Dashboard


After clicking a Turnitin LTI Assignment’s link, students are taken to their so-called ‘Assignment Dashboard’. Once there, clicking either their paper’s title or mark opens it in Feedback Studio, where they again see their grade along with any other feedback. The above image illustrates how things looks after feedback has been released.

2. My Marks (generic Blackboard tool)


This image shows the same student’s view of the same assignment in their Blackboard ‘My Marks’ tool, after instructors have made marks available there too.

Down the page we’ve described the procedure for altering visibility in both places, but first, what this means for the two most common feedback release scenarios:

Marks and Feedback Should be Visible to Students Immediately

When creating the LTI Assignment set it’s ‘Feedback Release Date’ to a date before marking will begin, such as the Due Date.  LTI Assignments’ marks show in students’ ‘My Marks’ tool by default so no further action is required.

Marks and Feedback Initially Withheld then Released to All Students at Once

When creating the LTI Assignment:

  1. Set ‘Feedback Release Date’ to the desired release date and time if decided; otherwise to any date well in the future.
  2. Manually hide its marks from My Marks (please see below).

When you are ready for marks and feedback to be shared with your students:

  1. Check the assignment’s ‘Feedback Release Date’ (see following section) and if necessary change to ‘now’ or a past date.
  2. Manually unhide the assignment’s marks from My Marks.

Note that if you don’t unhide the assignment in My Grades on the Feedback Release Date, students will technically still be able to see their score by using the Assignment’s link to access their Turnitin Assignment Dashboard and Feedback Studio.

The need to manually hide and unhide marks in Blackboard is a (regrettable) point of difference between old Direct Assignments and their LTI replacements.

Summary: when setting-up an LTI Assignment, if you don’t want marks revealed to students as soon as they’re input, you need to hide the Assignment from My Marks as well as specifying a suitable Feedback Release Date. Unhide it when ready for marks to be visible to the class.

Controlling the Visibility of Feedback Studio Feedback

This is determined by the ‘Feedback Release Date’ in the assignment’s Turnitin-specific settings. Feedback Studio feedback includes marks.

To check or alter the Feedback Release Date, simply click the assignment’s link then once the Inbox has loaded, the gear icon in the top right. Change the date as needed and click the blue ‘Submit’ button.

Tips

  • Feedback Release Date can be brought forward and pushed back as needed.
  • The assignment’s link must be visible to students for them to be able to get to Feedback Studio.

Controlling the Visibility of Assignment Marks in Students’ ‘My Marks’

Marks can be hidden and unhidden from My Marks in either of two equivalent ways:

From the Assignment’s Link

    1. Hover the mouse pointer over the link and click the down-arrow/chevron to the right
    2. Select Edit
    3. Under ‘Evaluation’, change ‘Visible to Students’ from ‘Yes’ to ‘No’ (or vice versa)
  1. Click Submit at the foot of the page
  2. You may see a dialog box asking if you want to change the link to open in a new tab: click ‘Cancel’ (not OK).

From the Grade Centre

  1. Locate the Grade Centre column for the LTI Assignment in question
  2. Click the down-arrow in the column header
  3. Select ‘Hide from students (on/off)’.

When this column’s grades are hidden from students in My Grades, you’ll see a pink diagonal strike-through in the header.  When unhidden, this indicator disappears.

Turnitin Help for Teaching Staff

■  Turnitin’s ‘Blackboard LTI 1.3 Instructor’ support pages are your primary source of information on Turnitin LTI Assignments and Feedback Studio.

■  Supplementary ITS Digital Learning pages may assist Otago staff adapting to Turnitin LTI in our Blackboard environment.