1. You will need a course shell – called Research Manuscripts – Originality Checking Service – set up for your Avenue to Learn account. You should request this setup from your department office.

2. Log in to Avenue to Learn and find the Research Manuscripts – Originality Checking Service course shell.

• Go to My Courses.
  • Open the tab, Continuing.
    • Click on Research Manuscripts – Originality Checking Service.

3. If it is your first time accessing the shell, it will need to be activated.

To activate:

• Under the Course Admin menu, click on Course Offering Information.
  • Scroll down to Activate and check the box next to Course is Active.
    • Click Save. Once that’s completed, students added to the course will be able to see it.

Note: If you are a Safari user, please visit Known issue with Safari browser for setup instructions.

4. You will see the following message: Application Customization Configuration v1.0 by Desire2Learn Incorporated is trying to access your information. Would you like to proceed?

• Click on Continue – this enables the connection to Ouriginal/Urkund.

5. Under the Assessment menu, select Assignments. You can create one or more assignments. Select Ungraded.

Example: You can create two assignments: 1. Research Papers, 2. Graduate Theses.

Important: If these assignments will be used by all students in a research group, rather than one specific person, it is recommended that no due date is entered.

6. Before leaving the Assignment page, you must ensure that these folders are visible to users.

Note: If you see an eyeball with a line though it next to the assignment, folders will not be visible to the user. To make the item visible, click on the down arrow beside the assignment. A new menu will open – choose Make Visible to Users.

7. Return to the Main Course page.

8. The two Assignments will show in the overview table, each with two switches visible in right hand columns.

Important: Per university policy on Plagiarism Checking Software, both switches should be turned on so that you and the student may see the report. A pop-up window will appear each time a switch is clicked on, asking the user if the feature should be enabled.

How to set up originality checking in Avenue to Learn

This video is a visual how-to of the above directions.

1. To add an individual student to the Course, you can use either the Course Admin menu OR the Communication menu. Select Classlist under either menu.

2. Click Add Participants button at the top of the page if the student’s name doesn’t appear in the table of names shown.

3. Under Add Existing Users, enter the student’s name or Mac ID into the search window and click on the magnifying glass. A list of students matching the search parameters will appear below on the page.

4. Select the correct student and choose the role of “Student” in the “default section.”

5. Click Enrol Selected User at the bottom of the page. After a confirmation notice appears, you can return to the Classlist page – the student’s name should now be showing in the table.

6. The student may now submit a document to any Assignment created by the supervisor.

Important: Only students enrolled in McMaster have access to Avenue to Learn. External persons cannot be set up with a Mac ID, so they cannot have access to Ouriginal/Urkund.

Adding a list of students to the course

To add a group of students from a lab or program:

1. Go to Course Admin menu OR Communication menu.

2. Select Classlist.

3. If no student names appear in the table, click Add Participants button at the top of the page.

4. Under Import users from a file on your computer, upload a .txt or .csv file.

5. Where the user sees ‘Import File’, click the <Choose File> button and select the newly created file.

How to format a student list file for upload

1. One individual user per each row.

2. Each row must be set up in the following order: Username, Section, Role.

• Use commas to separate the three parameters.
• Do not use quotation marks.
• Username: Student’s Mac ID
• Role: Student
• Section: Course Offering Code

How to find the Course Offering Code

1. Go to Course Admin.

2. Click on Course Offering Information.

3. Copy code from the Course Offering Code. Paste code into the Section column in your .csv and follow it by _00.

Important: The code is unique to each faculty member. It should look similar to this code: OTHER_GRADUATE_STUDIES_P_macID_CONT_20_00. The code must appear in each row. 

Note: You can create your original file in Excel and save as the correct format.

Students – or Faculty if they have selected “View as Student” mode – may submit their research document to the appropriate assignment folder.

1. Click on the Assessment menu.

2. Click on Assignments, then select the appropriate folder.

Example:

3. Click Add a File, then select “My Computer” in the pop-up window and upload your document.

7. Click Add once the correct file has been uploaded.

8. Click Submit once the correct file is showing under “Files to submit” on the assignment page.

Important

• Upload only one (1) document per assignment submission.
• File sizes larger than 100 MB cannot be uploaded, but even those above 50 MB may cause problems. Consider removing images to reduce the size of your file.

Submitting a file to Urkund

The video below is a visual representation of the instructions on this page.

1. On the main course page – where the Assignment Overview shows – select Plagiarism Submission Details. You will find this above the table.

2. You may sort through a large collection of submitted files using filters.

• Click Filters.
  • Choose your sorting parameters.
    • Click Apply Filters.

3 Once you find the correct document, click on Show Details [+] to expand the submission. A table will appear showing

• file name
• status (whether analyzed or not)
• significance score and
• last updated (referring to the last upload date).

Note: The analysis takes time and only when the green checkmark is showing and the status reads as analyzed may the score report be viewed.

4.  To view the analysis report,

• Click on the file name in the table.
  • In the pop-up window, click View Report. This will launch a new window or tab in the browser and take you to the Urkund website.

5. For first-time users, consider downloading the Urkund Report Quick Start Guide PDF guide to help you navigate the report.

Download the report

A permanent copy of the report can be downloaded from the Urkund/Ouriginal site, by clicking on the download arrow in the upper right corner of the Analysis Overview web page.

The score report on Ouriginal/Urkund site and the document in Avenue to Learn are no longer connected.

When the user submits an assignment by clicking the Submit button, one copy of the document is sent to Ouriginal to be checked. That document is examined by Ouriginal, a report is generated, and Ouriginal automatically deletes the document from their system. You cannot delete the document from Ouriginal through Avenue to Learn.

The copy of the document that is held in Avenue to Learn can be opened or deleted, but the user will not be able to send that same copy of that document to Ouriginal again – the Submit button will not appear a second time. To re-examine a revised document, the user would need to upload the document to Avenue to Learn again.

To remove the document from Avenue to Learn

1. When you are ready to delete the file, return to the Research Manuscripts – Originality Checking Service on Avenue to Learn.

• Open Assessments menu.
  • Click on Assignments.
    • Click on the appropriate folder (for example, Research Papers or Graduate Theses); a table of all submissions will appear.

2. Find the name of the student who submitted the document you want to delete. Below the student’s name, the file name is showing. The far right column is labelled Delete. In that column, a trash can symbol appears next to the file name. To delete the file:

• Click on the trash can symbol.
  • Approve the deletion.