Preparing files from other sources for submission to Turnitin

Firstly, if it's a single file from any source, then you need only give the file a meaningful name, and upload it from your hard drive as described in previous sections. This section is really about how to package a number of files into one 'zip' file so that all the student essays can be uploaded at once. To do this, you need to give each submission document a meaningful name so that you'll know who did what - or maybe ask the students to do this so that you don't have to. A good standard might be to ask the students to give the essay a name similar to the same format as the one created automatically by the 'download submissions' facility in LUVLE. This is as follows:

< Student_Name>_<library_card_no>_<essay_name>.doc

Note that the '_' underscore character is used to replace any spaces in the name.

Once you've got a directory on your computer's hard drive with all the work in it with all the submissions properly named, you'll need to package them all up as a single 'zip' file so that you can do a rapid single upload to Turnitin. Listed below are a number of methods of zipping up all your files ready for submission. The methods listed below are for Windows machines; if you benefit from being on a Mac or Linux machine but don't know how to zip up your files, please contact us, and we'll advise.

If you have a Windows machine, this is by far the quickest and easiest way to pack up a load of files that have been emailed or given on disc to you. To zip a set of files that need uploading, select all files then right click on any of the selected files. A small menu will appear. You should select “Send to” and then “Compressed folder”. This makes a zipped folder in the same directory as the files. Windows XP/Vista/7 zip folders (or compressed folders) largely behave exactly as ordinary folders on your Windows machine do. To look at the files inside the folder, simply double click on the compressed folder and you will see the usual display of icons.

Method 2. Using the WinZIP program.

WinZIP is available for download from http://www.winzip.com/. It's not free, but it is cheap, and gives you more control than using the Windows zipper. Once installed, to zip files, select all the files that you want in your zip file, and then right click on any of the selected files. A menu will appear. If you've got WinZip then you should select “Add to zip file”. Alternatively, you can also run your zip program from the start menu, and select files from within the program. In either case, you'll need to give the zip file a name, but apart from that it'll make the file to be uploaded.