Keen-eyed readers may note that www.turnitinuk.com now requires a login. Fear not as public content is still available via the follow two public URLs

• https://guides.turnitin.com/ – help and guides
• https://www.turnitin.com/regions/uk – all about Turnitin

[Added by Jill, 05/11/2018: In other words, one needs to go via turnitin.com to access training and support materials, not directly to www.turnitinuk.com]

We have just received this from Turnitin. WebLearn will queue all essay submissions and process them once the maintenance is complete.

No new assignments should be created whilst Turnitin is unavailable.

We’re just dropping you a note to let you know the following Turnitin services will be briefly unavailable on October 28, 2018:

• Turnitin and TurnitinUK (including all integrations and Turnitin Early Adopter Program)
• SimCheckOEM (TCA API)
• Feedback Studio for iOS
• iThenticate
• WriteCheck

To ensure that services remain stable, particularly during high submission periods, this micro maintenance (30 minutes) will include several hardware updates and performance improvements.

When will services be unavailable?

GMT Oct 28th 09:00 – 09:30

Is your time zone not listed? Click here to find out when you’ll be affected.

How will you be affected?

While we’d love to provide an uninterrupted service, our machines require a health check every now and again…

Users will be unable to submit and grade during this maintenance window, so please ensure that any submission deadlines are adjusted to fall outside of the window.

Thanks for your patience!

Stay up to date with Turnitin system status by following @TurnitinStatus on Twitter.

Follow @TurnitinStatus

A message from Turnitin.

To clarify, during the maintenance period (Sept 22 4pm – 12:30am (Sept 23))

• it will not be possible to create or submit assignments via the Turnitin website
• it will not be possible to create a new Turnitin-enabled assignment in WebLearn (although you can create a regular assignment and then enable Turnitin checking at a later date)
• all submissions to Turnitin-enabled assignments made via WebLearn will be queued and checked once the maintenance has run its course

Dear Customers,

You may have noticed that some Turnitin customers recently experienced intermittent service interruptions or degradations. We apologize if you were one of the customers affected, and we are happy to report that our services are currently stable.

To prevent further issues of this nature, we will be performing some proactive emergency maintenance that will temporarily disrupt our services including:

• Turnitin and TurnitinUK (including all integrations)
• SimCheckOEM (TCA API)
• Feedback Studio for iOS
• iThenticate (including iThenticate via API)
• WriteCheck

When will services be unavailable?

PDT Sept 22 8am – 4:30pm

BST Sept 22 4pm – 12:30am (Sept 23)

AEST Sept 23 1am – 9:30am

Is your time zone not listed? Click here to find out when you’ll be affected.

How will you be affected?

Users will be unable to submit and grade during this maintenance window, so please ensure that any submission deadlines are adjusted to fall outside of the window.

Thanks for your understanding and continued support of Turnitin.

Stay up to date with Turnitin system status by following @TurnitinStatus on Twitter.

Follow @TurnitinStatus

Turnitin have introduced a new “dynamic” status page which gives real-time information on the health of their systems. It also outlines any planned downtime. Be sure to check the Turnitin UK section (and not the general Turnitin area).

It maybe worth pointing out how a Turnitin outage affects users. There are two scenarios:

1. use via WebLearn
2. (direct) use via the TurnitinUK website

Use of Turnitin via WebLearn

Outage of TurnitinUK will

• not affect the submission of papers via WebLearn. WebLearn will queue any submissions and will dispatch them to Turnitin once the service is restored.
• will affect the viewing of originality scores and originality reports – neither of these facilities will be available until the service is restored.

Direct Use of Turnitin via the TurnitinUK Website

Outage of TurnitinUK will affect both the submission of papers and the viewing of reports and scores.

These facilities will only be available once the service is restored.

This blog already contains an entry on the national UK User Summit that was held in Newcastle on 19 October 2017.

Here is a summary (with links to further information) provided by Turnitin after the event:

• More education is needed to communicate what academic integrity actually means – for both staff and students.
• This lack of understanding represents a major reputational risk for individual institutions, awarding bodies and the HE sector as a whole.
• Contract cheating is a growing industry. 800–1,200 different websites have been identified as selling essays – there is sure to be more out there.
• The QAA, working in partnership with Turnitin, provided an overview of its latest policy to help HE institutions address contract cheating and essay mills.
• However, it is not just essay mills that are the problem. “When a student gets someone else to do the work for them, they usually give it to a friend or a family member or someone they know rather than a commercial service.” Phil Newton, University of Swansea (Watch Phil’s presentation here)

The Support and Consultation team in Academic IT Services (Technology-Enhanced Learning) is working closely with Turnitin and the UK higher education sector on these and many more aspects of promoting academic integrity.

Contact Oxford University Turnitin support: turnitin@it.ox.ac.uk