Introduction

In Brightspace, you can create assignments with or without Turnitin. Brightspace settings are always leading, even when Turnitin is enabled.

Turnitin is an additional control layer and cannot override Brightspace settings. The number of submissions and which version is checked are fully determined by the Brightspace assignment.

Therefore, leave the Turnitin setting unchanged and set to:

“Generate reports immediately (students cannot resubmit)”.

This setting ensures consistent plagiarism reporting. The wording “cannot resubmit” is misleading: resubmission is possible if it is allowed in Brightspace. Brightspace determines this; Turnitin follows.

Brightspace and Turnitin complement each other but operate at different levels. By maintaining this division of roles, confusion and incorrect results are avoided.

Below follows a more detailed explanation of the different settings.

1. Brightspace settings (Assignment → Submission & Completion)

The Brightspace assignment determines:

• how many times a student may submit,
• which submissions remain visible,
• which documents are ultimately sent to Turnitin.

These settings always apply, even if Turnitin is not enabled, and form the basis on which Turnitin operates.

Brightspace offers three options for retaining submissions:

1.1 All submissions are kept

Students can submit as many times as they want until the due date & time.
All submitted versions remain visible to the instructor in Brightspace.

• A Turnitin report is automatically generated for each submission.
• These reports are visible in the assignment view.
• Important: multiple submissions from the same student within the same assignment are not compared with each other in Turnitin.
  Students therefore do not receive a 100% match on their own earlier version.
• Turnitin stores only one document per student per assignment in its own database. Earlier submissions are overwritten by the most recent version.

1.2 Only one submission allowed

Students can submit only once.
After submission, the assignment is closed for that student.

• One Turnitin report is generated.
• Turnitin report timing settings have no effect here (since there is only one document).

1.3 Only the most recent submission is kept

Students can resubmit until the deadline, but:

• only the latest submission is retained in Brightspace;
• earlier submissions are overwritten;
• Turnitin therefore always receives the latest version and automatically overwrites previous submissions.

Summary: Brightspace determines the number of submissions

• Brightspace decides what is submitted.
• Turnitin scans everything that Brightspace allows and passes on.
• The settings under Submission & Completion determine how many files reach Turnitin at all.

2. Turnitin settings (Manage Turnitin → More Settings)

When enabling Turnitin, you see three options for generating Similarity Reports.
In the Brightspace–Turnitin V2 integration, only one choice is correct:

✔️ Generate reports immediately (students cannot resubmit)

This setting should always be used.

Why this choice is always correct

The wording “students cannot resubmit” is misleading and does not apply to Brightspace.
Student submission behavior is fully determined by Brightspace, not by Turnitin.

If multiple submissions are allowed in Brightspace, a student can always resubmit, regardless of the chosen Turnitin setting. A new Similarity Report is automatically generated with each new submission.

What Turnitin does in this integration

• A report is created for every submission sent by Brightspace
• Only the latest version per student is stored in Turnitin
• Earlier submissions are overwritten
• Submissions from the same student are not compared with each other

This prevents self-matches (100%).

Summary

• Brightspace determines: number of submissions, resubmits, which version counts
• Turnitin determines: when scanning occurs and which report is shown
• Brightspace settings are always leading

➡️ Leave the Turnitin setting unchanged and set to
“Generate reports immediately (students cannot resubmit)” for the most predictable and correct behavior.