What to do when Turnitin doesn’t generate a similarity report?

Table of Contents

Typical Procedure

Normally when Moodle sends a submission to Turnitin it can take several minutes to an hour for the similarity report to become available depending on the amount of requests Turnitin is receiving.

Typically, a notification will appear for a submission to indicate that it is being queued with a Turnitin ID being assigned shortly afterwards.

A similarity percentage score should then appear in the assignment submission area shortly afterwards through which the similarity report can be accessed by clicking on it.

While Turnitin similarity reports are typically generated as expected there are times when a report is not generated for a submission. If similarity percentage score and report have failed to generate for a submission then you will likely see a red ‘X' where the percentage score would normally be visible. In some cases, the Turnitin status may have remained as 'Pending’ for some time after the submission deadline which also can indicate that the percentage score and report have failed to generate.

There are several reasons why a similarity percentage score and report might not be generated. This could be due to with the Moodle assignment settings, the submitted file type, the acceptance of the End-User License Agreement (EULA) or potential Turnitin service disruption.

1. Report Generation Speed

Firstly, if a number of similarity reports have yet to be generated it is important to check the Moodle assignment settings to determine whether reports are set to generate on a particular due date or upon submission to the Moodle assignment activity. This is managed by the Turnitin plugin setting called ‘Report Generation Speed’.

If the assignment has been set to generate reports immediately (students can resubmit until due date), the similarity reports will be generated for every draft a student submits, overwriting each time. After the third submission there will be a delay of 24 hours between generation of reports.

If the assignment has been set to generate reports on the due date (students can resubmit until due date), the similarity reports will only be generated for the final file a student submits for an assignment and will become available once the assignment due date/time have passed.

2. Unsupported File Type/Format

If the Moodle assignment setting for the report generation speed appears to be correct with 24 hours having passed since the last submission or the due date/time having passed then the issue may be that an incompatible file type has been submitted. This would be more likely if only a limited number of similarity reports have yet to be generated.

If a student uploads a file type that is accepted by Moodle but that is not on the list of approved file types for Turnitin, the document will still be accepted for the assignment but no originality report will be generated. We advise limiting uploads to only the file types allowed by Turnitin to avoid this issue.

If this is caught before the due date, the student should re-submit the file in a supported format. For support in instances where the deadline has already passed, please contact eden.digital@lse.ac.uk.

The below file types/formats are incompatible with the Turnitin platform and if submitted it will not be possible to generate a similarity report for them.

Incompatible File Types

If any file type is allowed, Turnitin will not generate a Similarity Report for the following:

a.) Password-protected files

b.) Microsoft® Works (.wps) files

c.) Microsoft Word 2007 macros-enabled .docm files

d.) OpenOffice Text (.odt) files created and downloaded from Google Docs online

e.) Document (.doc) files created using OpenOffice

f.) Spreadsheets created outside of Microsoft Excel (i.e. .ods)

g.) Apple Pages

h.) Text with visual effects

Incompatible File Formats

Furthermore, while Adobe® PDF and Microsoft PowerPoint® files are accepted by Turnitin there are some cases in which Turnitin is unable to extract the text from within such file types.

Adobe® PDF - Turnitin will not accept PDF image files, forms, or portfolios, files that do not contain highlightable text (e.g. a scanned file - usually an image), documents containing multiple files or files created with software other than Adobe Acrobat®.

Microsoft PowerPoint® (.pptx, .ppt, .ppsx, and .pps) - Text with visual effects is not supported, and it is recommended that any visual effects such as shadows and 3D be removed prior to submitting to Turnitin. 

The third party theme ‘Slate’ is not supported when used in the creation of a PowerPoint file. When the 'Slate' theme is applied, the text in the document becomes unselectable after the file is converted into a PDF, preventing Turnitin from extracting it.

3. Accepting End-User License Agreement (EULA)

When submitting a file to Turnitin all users are required to accept the most recent End-User License Agreement (EULA). This includes those have are submitting to Turnitin for the first time as well as those who have submitted to Turnitin previously. If the EULA is not accepted then the file will not be submitted to Turnitin resulting in a similarity percentage and report not being generated.

For a similarity percentage and report to be generated, the user will need to return to the assignment submission area and click on the prompt to accept the EULA. The user will then need to be ‘allowed another attempt’ in order for the file to be submitted to Turnitin and an originality report generated. Although, if the Moodle assignment due date has already passed then please contact the Eden.Digital team to discuss an alternative method to obtaining the similarity report for the submission.

4. Turnitin Service Disruption

During times of Turnitin service disruption, similarity percentage and report generation may be affected. If you are still experiencing issues after checking all of the above then please proceed to the Turnitin system status page to check for any service disruptions. This page will inform you of any scheduled maintenance or incidents that have affected the Turnitin service.

 Turnitin Service Disruption FAQ

What happens if Turnitin is down when my students try to submit their work?

Turnitin outages will not affect Moodle assignments and files submitted by students will still be securely saved and available for grading and management in Moodle.

Similarity reports may be slightly delayed if Turnitin goes down; however, Moodle will keep automatically resubmitting the paper until service is restored, at which point the similarity report will be generated.

Typically, no further action will be required in Moodle to make this happen. Although, in some cases you may be required to manually push the submission through to Turnitin. Any submissions with the 'Resubmit to Turnitin' message will need to be manually re-submitted by clicking on that message and they should then be queued, assigned with a Turnitin ID, and processed.