Turnitin Woes

Chris Paolelli

Teachers and students in my school are getting error messages when they try to view Turnitin-based assignments they have created for the new academic year (which starts Tuesday). "Assignment not available" for students and "Could not open the assignment" for teachers. Some teachers can import old Turnitin-based assignments, but some get the same problem when they try. Is anyone else having this problem?

Megan Day

Yes. I updated our 1.1 LTI integration a couple of weeks ago to the new 1.3 since 1.1 will be obsolete in December. We have yet to get 1.3 to work appropriately and have the same issue you do. Teachers can create the assignment without issue but can't open the assignment.

I reached out to Turnitin Support since it initially felt like an issue on their side. Their support was VERY responsive and by the second day, I was on a Zoom call with their support rep. After working with their support, they ultimately concluded that the problem is on Blackbaud's end. Honestly, no surprise there….

What we found was that if the teacher creates the Turnitin Assignment (Add > Add-Turnitin) and saves the assignment in the Turnitin screen and then hits CANCEL when it jumps back to the Blackbaud assignment creation screen, then the assignment WILL work. In other words, do not click "Save" on the Blackbaud assignment screen. You can try that workaround with your teachers if they're willing.

Turnitin said Blackbaud is aware of the issue but does not have an ETA on a resolution. I should probably open a ticket with Blackbaud about it too so I will at least (maybe) get some communication from Blackbaud when it's fixed. I have opened 5 tickets with Blackbaud in the last 7 days, all of which do not have a resolution in sight. This will be the 6th. 😫