Turnitin’s latest update  includes the option for Instructors to choose to allow any file type as a submission. Although Turnitin will not produce Originality Reports for all file types, this provides the ability to give/receive feedback using Grademark on files for which Originality Reports cannot be generated, and files that cannot be displayed in the Document Viewer. This includes images, music, video, and other file types. Turnitin have provided the following information about this new feature:

Instructors will see a new assignment setting when creating or editing Paper assignments in Turnitin. The new setting will appear below the assignment name and point value fields, and will have two options: “Allow only file types that Turnitin can check for originality” and “Allow any file type”.

The system default will remain “Allow only file types that Turnitin can check for originality”. The requirements for generating an Originality Report have not been changed, they are:

• The file must be less than 400 pages in length
• The file must be less than 20 MB
• The file must contain more than 20 words of text
• The file must be in one of these file formats: Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, WordPerfect, PostScript, PDF, HTML, RTF, OpenOffice (ODT), Hangul (HWP), Google Docs (submitted via the Google Drive submission option), plain text files.

If “Allow any file type” is selected, any file that is less than 20 MB and that is less than 400 pages in length will be allowed to be submitted. If the submitted file meets the requirements for generating an Originality Report (listed above) an Originality Report will be created for the file.

For more information, go to Turnitin’s Help Centre and search for “allow any file type”. If you have any questions, please contact tel-help@bristol.ac.uk.