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Turnitin Version 2 Updates

For those of you using Turnitin (Version 2) with Brightspace - we’re making things better. Better integration, better workflow for instructors, and better experience for students. We’ve listened to all of your feedback and we're excited to announce enhancements with the Turnitin Version 2 integration releasing in July! . Don’t know what version you use? You can get the details on the difference between V1 and V2 [BROKEN LINK]here.
What's Happening?
D2L, in close alignment with Turnitin, will be releasing the following features and functionality within the Brightspace Assignments Tool:

Instructors can now enable GradeMark without Originality Check in Brightspace (for those that want to only use the annotations/commenting and grading in GradeMark and do not want to see Similarity Scores/Similarity Report)
All dates are now managed in Brightspace - removing the need for instructors to manage dates in Brightspace AND Turnitin
Automatically transfer Grades and Feedback to Brightspace as draft (optional enablement)
UI changes that give instructors a clear understanding of where they are in the grading process within the Brightspace Assignment Summary page, with visual icons indicating if a grade has been provided (or not) or if feedback has been provided (or not).
Students will have a visual indication if feedback has been left in GradeMark (not just an indication if a grade has been provided) – this is an exciting update for instructors who use assignments for Formative Assessments (where grades are not required)
More streamlined options for the course copy process
Group Projects work!

See below for some more specifics and some screenshots of the new UI/UX experience.
Why is it Happening?
We heard you! Based on your feedback via PIE as well as direct engagement with our Support and Product teams, we gathered your feedback and implemented these changes with your needs in mind. Turnitin and D2L are committed to ensuring your success by providing you an easy-to use and streamlined user experience.

How and When is it Happening?
This release will be available in July via the Continuous Delivery process. You can expect to see these updates in your respective wave in July.
What do I need to do next?
Stay tuned! Comment below to follow this blog post for more updates as we work through this release. We will ensure to communicate step by step instructions on how you can take advantage of this new functionality.

Questions?
Comment below and we’ll respond!
Detailed Description of Version 2 Updates:

Streamlining the Assignment Set up experience

Functionality	Current behavior	New behavior
Assignment Configuration Options	When Turnitin is enabled at an Assignment level, the instructor can now configure if they want to use just GradeMark or GradeMark + Originality Check.	New configurations at the assignment level allow instructors to decide what features in Turnitin they would like to utilize: GradeMark only (for grading and feedback) or GradeMark + Originality Check (which adds a layer of similarity reporting on top of GradeMark capabilities). If Originality Check is not utilized for an assignment, all Similarity Score icons will be hidden from the Brightspace UX as to not unnecessarily complicate the Instructors UI.
Assignment Date Displays	Both Brightspace and Turnitin display various dates throughout the UX that often contradict each other and confuse the instructor. An added layer of complexity is that some dates need to align, and others do not, in order for assignment submissions to be accepted by both TII and Brightspace. Dates that need to be in sync but fall out of sync (based on one date being manually updated, and the other not) also create scenarios where students may be able to see their grade in Brightspace, but not see their feedback in GradeMark.	Brightspace will manage all dates for both systems moving forward ensuring that: Instructors will not need to manage a second set of dates in TII (they will now be removed from the UI to remove any confusion) Instructors can feel confident that students will receive access to all feedback/grades for any given assignment appropriately (based on Brightspace grade release date, or when an instructor manually releases to any given student)
Course Copy	The current implementation of Version 2 requires Instructors to explicitly re-activate Turnitin after Course Copy. The reason for this is due to TII’s option for paper view requests. TII Uses the email address of the person who initially creates the Assignment Folder to handle these requests. There is a prompt in the Assignments tool that allows this to be done in bulk for all assignments at once, but in the case of an Instructional Designer for a frequently used Master Course, where it's offered many times by lecturers and TA's as opposed to instructors that are creating new assignments - entering each course to re-enable assignments is not scalable	New system level configuration that contains an email address that can be associated with TII Assignment Folders that are created automatically during the copy process. This will mean that all PPV requests will go to a centralized inbox at the institution to manage and distribute the requests to the appropriate instructor.

Improving the Instructor Grading and Feedback experience

Functionality	Current behavior	New behavior
Grade and Feedback transfer from GradeMark to Brightspace	Grades for each submission are sent back to Brightspace, but not to the assignment score or gradebook. Instructors must manually initiate the transfer of each grade to Gradebook.	New option for instructors to choose to have all scores transferred as Draft. This removes the need for any manual score transfers and aligns with Brightspace’s standard Draft Workflow for assignments. Feedback is released to students based on Brightspace publish rules.
Instructor access to GradeMark, clear understanding of where the instructor is in the grading process	The launch experience into GradeMark is not easily “discoverable” by instructors. Although there are locations where one can launch directly to GradeMark for a specific paper, its often hidden or requires more clicks. The quickest path for instructors is via the TII Similarity report icon, however not all assignments will leverage similarity reporting. Also, once an instructor has started to assess submissions using GradeMark, there is no clear indication as to which assignments are graded, has feedback included etc.	New icon visualizations from the assignment summary page: Indicate if a grade has been provided or not Indicate if Feedback has been left or not (annotations/comments) Similarity score icon displayed in its own column, hidden if Originality Check is not enabled on the assignment Explicit edit icon to launch into GradeMark

Improving Feedback Access Experience for Students

Functionality	Current behavior	New behavior
Ability for students to access feedback for formative assessments	Formative Assessment (where no grade should be required) via GradeMark cannot be exposed to Students because D2L does not know that annotations exist in Turnitin (unless a Grade is set, which is undesirable)	Turnitin has enabled the ability for Brightspace to indicate if Feedback has been left or not in GradeMark. Brightspace is now including a visual indication to students to check their feedback in GradeMark in the Assignment Tool, User Progress and the Grade Book.
Ability for a student to know when feedback via GradeMark has been provided by their instructor	There is inconsistent access to GradeMark Feedback for students. Students can currently receive GradeMark Assignment feedback from the Assignments Tool, but cannot currently receive GradeMark Assignment feedback from Gradebook or User Progress (however can access Brightspace feedback)

Improvements to backend functionality

Functionality	Current behavior	New behavior
Date data sync requirements	Where dates were required to be set in both Brightspace and Turnitin, each were required to be updated manually by the instructor	Brightspace is now managing syncing all dates in Brightspace to Turnitin, so the only dates Instructors need to set are in Brightspace – and only where applicable (ie, if the instructor wants to set a start date, due date and/or end date).
Student Submission requirements	Once a student submits to Brightspace, they are provided a submission receipt immediately, however there are cases where the file cannot be submitted successfully to Turnitin, and therefore cannot be appropriately reviewed and assessed within Feedback Studio. These can result in an Instructor having to request an updated submission from the student to finish their assessment. The reason for submissions not being accepted by Turnitin could be for various reasons, but the majority are due to the student submitting a document with wrong file types or the file size is too large. Brightspace and Turnitin have different file size/type restrictions (due to requirements for Originality Check), leading Brightspace to accept the document, but Turnitin to not.	When an assignment folder has Turnitin enabled with Originality Check turned on, Brightspace adopts Turnitin’s file restrictions ensuring students can only submit documents that will be accepted by Turnitin. This will account for most of the errors that take place today. For other errors that may have taken place, the instructor will have the ability to attempt to submit to Turnitin on behalf of the student. If that attempt does not work, they will need to engage with the student to get an updated file.

New Functionality

Functionality	Current behavior	New behavior
Group Projects with Turnitin enabled	Turnitin could not be enabled for group assignments due to a bug whereby only the student who submitted the assignment in the group, could see the feedback from the instructor	Turnitin can now be enabled for a group assignment and all students will now see the instructor feedback.