Moodle Help & Support (Staff)

This refers to Moodle 4.1 from December 2023 onward.

If you ever need to provide feedback or a mark to a student but do not require a student to submit, you can still provide feedback and give a mark in Turnitin using the ‘Grading Template’. This is particularly useful for situations where students give oral presentations and may not have uploaded any work to Turnitin.

Dependencies: This guidance presumes you have already set up a Turnitin assignment. If this is not the case then please visit How to create a Turnitin Assignment Drop Box first and create your Turnitin assignment. 

Creating the Grading Template

  1. When ready to provide a mark/feedback, click on the Turnitin assignment in your Moodle site.
  2. This will load up the Turnitin assignment inbox. You should see the list of students without any submission information. Click on the 'Grey pencil' within the "Grade" column to start marking student work without a submission.

Turnitin submission table

3. A pop up window will appear warning a ‘Grading Template’ will be created if you press 'OK'. If you are expecting the student to submit something then do not use the grading template and do not press 'OK' as this will prevent the student from submitting. If you are not expecting a submission press then press the 'OK' button.

Grade without submission warning pop up

Please note: Turnitin will send the student an email to inform that they have submitted even though you have created the grading template. Therefore please warn your students beforehand that they may receive this kind of email from Turnitin.

4. The pop up window will disappear and you will now see that the 'Grey pencil' has turned blue in the "Grade" column. You will also see that the title Grading Template has appeared in the 'Submission Title' column. Click on the blue pencil to launch the feedback studio tab. 

Grading template and blue pencil now in Moodle

5. In the Feedback studio tab you will see that there is a plain document except for the Turnitin logo. You can add feedback for the student by writing comments on the document. Or if you are using a 'Rubric' form to mark click on the fourth icon on the right (highlighted in green below). If you wish to add 'Overall comments' click on the third icon on the right (highlighted in light blue below) below the 'QuickMarks' button (highlighted in orange below). You can add quick marks and comments to the blank Turnitin page.

To add a mark on the assignment just click on the top right of the screen (highlighted in red below) and give it a score. If you have been using a rubric/grading form and press the 'Apply to grade' button, then the total mark will appear here too. When you are happy with the mark and feedback close the Feedback studio tab and go back to Moodle. 

Feedback studio menu

6. Back in Moodle you should now see the mark given in the ‘Grade’ column. The student will be able to access their mark and any feedback when the post date of the assignment passes. 

Grade now in Grade column in Moodle

Similar tutorials

The following other resources are also relevant to this topic: