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Turnitin Accessibility Statement

The University of Leeds is committed to making its digital estate accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Turnitin is an assessment submission, plagiarism detection and marking system. It includes:

  • Similarity Check: A plagiarism checking tool which identifies matches between pieces of writing and produces a similarity report.
  • Feedback Studio: A tool to facilitate and support online marking and feedback of student work.
  • PeerMark: A tool to facilitate student peer review.

This statement applies to accessibility within the system itself, and does not cover uploaded course content. Additional relevant information may be highlighted in module-specific accessibility statements within Minerva. Accessibility statements for other integrated tools are available via the Accessibility Statements for Digital Education Systems page.

Compliance status

Turnitin is not currently compliant with the internationally standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 Level AA standard, due to the non-compliances listed below. Turnitin has provided further accessibility information, available via the Turnitin website alongside their Accessibility Conformance Report. Per the University's commitment to accessibility, we continue to push for ongoing improvements towards accessibility within this system.

Accessibility within Turnitin

Turnitin supports the use of screen readers, keyboard and swipe navigation, and speech recognition software except where noted. Adjustable browser settings for magnification are supported as well as colours, contrast and fonts.

Screen readers

The Feedback Studio view within Turnitin raises additional challenges for screen reader users providing and receiving feedback. Further details of specific issues can be found below, particularly noted under Keyboard. In testing, integrated screen readers such as VoiceOver and TalkBack consistently announced feedback, though issues were encountered with NVDA. The submission process was unaffected by these more significant issues.

If impacted by these issues, we recommend working with your teaching team and Disability Services to ensure alternative routes for receiving feedback in an accessible format.

Text Reader View

The Turnitin Feedback overlay prevents non-visual review of submitted files by graders using assistive technologies. A text-only view of the document is available as an alternative for staff reviewing submissions, showing what has been found and scanned by the Turnitin Feedback Studio OCR, allowing for similarity detection to be reviewed within submissions. We are aware of challenges with this view such as lost context such as headers, formatting and alt text, and recommend staff using this feature also review downloaded original versions of documents for accuracy.

Keyboard navigation and shortcuts

Industry standard keyboard interactions are used throughout to move between menus, open menus, and select items within a menu. Keyboard navigation patterns differ between browsers such as Edge, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome. The interactions within any particular browser are common and consistent.

Voice controls

Turnitin Feedback Studio supports voice controls using Windows voice typing. Users have reported significant barriers when using Dragon Naturally Speaking and we will continue to advocate for the vendor to adopt more robust support for additional dictation assistive technologies.

Non-accessible Content

Areas of non-compliance (student submissions)

Info and Relationships

Some controls lacked valid ARIA roles and values, such as previous/next buttons in document previews lacking descriptive names. The hamburger menu button also has the inappropriate accessible name of "Toggle Navigation". These fail success criterion 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A).

Focus Visible

There is no visible focus indicator for Assignment instructions. The focus indicator for the Launch, Upload and Download buttons do not have sufficient contrast to be visible. These fail success criteria 2.4.7 Focus Visible (Level AA) and 1.4.3 Contrast (Level AA).

Headings and Labels

The assignment dashboard uses an H2 header for Assignment Title before skipping to H4 for Instructions and other sub-headings.

Turnitin's integration works within embedded frames on the page. Interactions are normally standard and as expected, though are embedded so the H1 header is repeated within the frame. The H2 header then repeats the Page Title, which is the assignment header. These should be read as H2 and H3 respectively.

These fail success criteria 1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence (Level A) and 2.4.6 Heading and Labels (Level AA).

Keyboard

Turnitin submissions include an overlay which prevents assistive technologies from interacting with the submitted file itself. Instructor feedback placed on the overlay is therefore not able to be understood in context without relying on visual information. This fails success criteria 1.3.3 Sensory Characteristics (Level A) and 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A).

The tooltip guidance for accepted submission file types is not reachable by keyboard-only navigation. Guidance on file formats is available in our Turnitin Student Guide as an alternative.

These fail success criteria 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A).

Error Identification

Where submission file type is restricted, no error message is communicated via screen reader when an invalid file type is uploaded. With most devices, only supported file types will be available to be selected; with the issue only found when testing with tablet and mobile devices.

The “number of words required to submit” status message when completing a text input submission is not communicated to screen reader users consistently across all devices. This has been resolved and tested successfully with most devices but still occurs for TalkBack screen readers.

These fail success criterion 3.3.1 Error Identification (Level A).

Areas of non-compliance (staff view)

Turnitin's Feedback Studio is designed to provide an overlay on student submissions to enter feedback or review similarity score content matches, which prevents assistive technologies from accessing the original document. The latest version of Feedback Studio resolves this issue and can be toggled from the Go to New View button in the header menu of a submission.

The Classic View is still required for entering marks and feedback while this feature is under development. We recommend staff assistive technology users use the New View for all other Turnitin features, before switching back to Classic for final marks and feedback.

Our testing of the staff marking workflow has been done with this workflow in mind.

Info and Relationships

H3 is used as the first heading to denote the start of the student submissions and each subsequent page. H1 is later user for the Overall Similarity Score in the collapsable sidebar.

Headings are not formatted in the downloadable Similarity report, despite content being styled to resemble headers via bolding and font size. Headings are also lost within student submissions when converting the document in Feedback Studio, removing these navigational landmarks.

These fail success criteria 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) and 2.4.6 Heading and Labels (Level AA).

Keyboard

Some menus and pop-ups could not be reached by keyboard or screen reader to be announced or closed, such as the similarity report info box, or the submission details menu (VoiceOver only). This fails success criteria 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A) and 1.4.13 Content-on-hover (Level AA).

Focus Visible

Focus indicators are not suitably visible when navigating the assignment inbox or when navigating similarity matches within a submission, due to size and contrast. This fails success criteria 1.1.1 Non-text Contrast (Level A) and 2.4.7 Focus Visible (Level AA).

Predictable on Focus

When using keyboard-only navigation without a screen reader focus navigates between similarity matches within a submission by match rather than in order of appearance (e.g. navigating through the first match through the entire submission before returning to the top of the document for the second match).

When using NVDA, focus moves from the end of the first page directly to the footer controls, skipping the rest of the document. Users should toggle to browse mode (NVDA+space) while in the document, then use the arrow keys to move to the next page before continuing.

These fail success criterion 3.2.1 On Focus (Level A).

What we are doing about known issues

University of Leeds is committed to improving accessibility across all our sites. Where issues are identified we will work to warn users and provide alternatives, while working with our vendors to enact continuous improvements. Web accessibility statements are developed through testing within the Digital Education Service in collaboration with University IT and reviewed annually.

Preparation of the statement

This statement was prepared on 22nd April, 2026.

Auditing and testing was led by self-assessment from the Digital Education Service Systems Team. Testing is undertaken internally using NVDA, Voiceover and TalkBack screen readers and browser-based accessibility tools in Chrome, Safari and Firefox.

Feedback and Contact Info

If you would like more information, find any problems not listed in this statement, or feel we're not meeting your accessibility needs, please contact the Digital Education Systems Team via the IT Service Desk.

If you encounter issues accessing learning content, please also contact your School in the first instance.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your concerns, you can contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).