Using Turnitin within Canvas
This page provides a summary of how Turnitin integrates into Canvas. The integration is called the Canvas Plagiarism Framework.
An introduction to Turnitin
Turnitin is a third-party system which provides a plagiarism awareness and screening service. This not only provides a deterrent to students against plagiarising their work, but more positively, it assists them in improving their academic writing and referencing skills. The service provides a 'similarity score' (which is returned within the Canvas assignment); the score reveals the percentage of words within a submitted assignments which match text in other works that are available online (e.g. electronic journal articles, websites, and previously submitted student papers that are saved within the extensive Turnitin databases).
Oxford University Policy
Oxford University's Policy and Guidance on Undergrduate Teaching and Learning states that: "Departments may provide students access to Turnitin for formative use under the supervision of their tutor/supervisor, for work that would not eventually be submitted for a University Examination" (page 12).
Note that from the point of submission of their work via Canvas, students can manage the process themselves; however the tutor (or course administrator) needs to create the Turnitin-enabled assignment in Canvas first, with the appropriate parameters.
How to set up a Turnitin Assignment
To create a Turnitin Assignment, start by going into the Assignments tool on the left-hand menu within a Canvas course. Then, press the + Assignment button to create a new assignment. Following this, simply change the Submission type field to Online and select File uploads.
This will open up the Plagiarism Review panel: select Turnitin.
- Continue to set all the further Turnitin options – note that for formative use by students, be sure to select 'Do not store the submitted papers' and keep the default 'Show report to students': Immediately.
- Set the remaining assignment options, and save the assignment.
Note: A student may make use of parts of their own formative work (that has already been submitted via Canvas) when submitting summative work later (via the online exams system Inspera). If their original work had been saved in the common Turnitin repository, it would be flagged up as a match (and possibly considered as 'self-plagiarism'). Such a match may be excluded by the person viewing the Turnitin report Links to an external site., but examiners may not be aware of that option.
Therefore Oxford University Proctors advise that to avoid such a situation, the option "Do not store submissions" option should be selected when creating a formative Canvas assignment.
Marking and grading information
Once submitted to Turnitin, originality scores will become available within 15-60 minutes in Canvas (depending on the length of the submitted document).
Although the Turnitin integration gives you access to Turnitin Feedback Studio (in which you can use annotation and feedback tools), we recommend that you make use of the Canvas Speedgrader feedback tool instead. This also enables annotation and markup, as well as feedback to students in the form of text, audio, video and speech-to-text.
More information
- Canvas guide: How to use the Canvas Speedgrader Links to an external site.
- Canvas Plagiarism Framework guides:
For teachers: Assignment setup Links to an external site.
For students: Accessing the similarity report Links to an external site.
Note: Assignments in Canvas have been approved by the University only for formative assessment, not summative assessment.
Summative work should be submitted via the separate platform Inspera. More information is available from the following web pages: