Canvas and Turnitin

dhulsey
Community Champion
573
277508
Introduction

Turnitin is well known for plagiarism and integrates with Canvas when an institution purchases a Trurnitin subscription. Many instructors rely on Turnitin.com services for plagiarism education, prevention, and detection. Turnitin is also a valuable tool for grading and peer reviews. Turnitin currently integrates with Canvas in two different ways, but Turnitin is phasing out the older method.

The oldest Turnitin integration with canvas is known as the API integration. Currently, Turnitin is phasing out this older integration, but still offers support to schools who are not having a good experience with the LTI.  

The newer method of using Turnitin is the LTI tool. Turnitin’s page for the LTI tool includes the official Admin, Instructor, and Student Guides

Tutorials from Instructure for using the Turnitin LTI can be found here: , How do I create a Turnitin assignment?, and How do I manage Turnitin assignments?

Canvas has also developed a more robust framework for plagiarism detection services: Spring Cleaning Is Coming: Plagiarism-Detection Improvements Headed Your Way! Turnitin has announced that they will be continuing the LTI plugin while also developing a new plugin using the framework canvas is developing. The target release for the new plugin is Fall 2017. This new plugin promises Turnitin assignment creation within Canvas's interface for those who wish to use Canvas for most operations but would like an originality report from Turnitin. Users who wish to grade in Turnitin or use Peermark will wish to use the LTI version. However, Turnitin says institutions will be able to run both the LTI and the new plugin simultaneously. 

What is "Feedback Studio"?

Feedback studio is the name for an interface overhaul for Turnitin that took place in mid 2016. You can see an interactive tour and demonstration of the interface (Note the ability to use bold, underline, italics and hotlinked text in Grademark comments).  The materials in this blog now refer to feedback Studio, but only Grademark and originality reports have been incorporated into Feedback Studio. Peermark and its interface has not changed at this time.

Does Feedback Studio alter any functionality?

Yes, but the changes only affect the grading functionality of Turnitin.  As of May 23, 2016, the ability to view the complete list of Grademark comments is missing. For students, the implementation of rubrics in Feedback Studio is clunky as I discuss in this video:

Thankfully, Turnitin is listening and refining Feedback Studio. As of early 2017, the ability to search for quick marks while grading has been restored.

As a local Canvas Administrator, how do I configure the Turnitin LTI?

There are multiple sets of instructions with varying levels of detail for local canvas Administrators on the Turnitin website. Here is the best set of instructions, and here is the current configuration of the Turnitin LTI at the account level for my school:

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1. Name the configuration.

2. The consumer key is provided to your account by Turnitin.

3. The launch url is provided by Turnitin and is the same for all institutions. The launch url for Turnitin UK Users is https://submit.ac.uk/api/lti/1p0/assignment.

4. Completing the domain field with "turnitin.com" ("turnitin.uk.com" for UK users) enables Turnitin to launch from the Canvas speedgrader report icons.

5. Setting the privacy to public allows Canvas to share student names and emails with Turnitin.

6. Turnitin documentation states that the Custom Fields may be left blank. However, adding the code developed by canvas engineers adds several convenient features that sync information between canvas and Turnitin so that instructors do not need to enter information in both Canvas and Turnitin, including due dates, assignment id's, assignment titles, points possible, and availability dates. The graphic depicts all of the available codes.

Here is a short video demonstrating the syncing features added by the custom code.

Can my institution enable both the API version and the LTI version as we transition to the LTI?

Turnitin has offered varying answers on this question. The latest answer is yes. In an email sent to local Turnitin instructors on 4-11-2016, Turnitin states, "For those who are wondering, it is possible to run the legacy Canvas integration and Canvas LTI integration in parallel during the transition period."

What happens to API enabled assignments when the API version gets shut off?

In an email sent to local Turnitin instructors on 4-11-2016, Turnitin states, "When the previous Canvas integration becomes unavailable, classes and assignments originally created through the previous integration will remain accessible by logging into Turnitin directly. These older classes and assignments will not be visible in the LTI integration."  Although, I believe this access is limited to Turnitin administrators.

On the Canvas side, The API enabled assignments stay in Canvas and all Canvas functionality remains intact when the Turnitin API gets turned off. Submissions and grading in Canvas persists in Canvas once you turn off the API; only the link to Turnitin is lost, which means losing direct access to originality reports and any grading done in Turnitin. Although, with the API turned off and LTI turned on, you can currently see the icons and percent in the speedgrader for past assignments. If you try to click on the icon, you get this error message:

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The text "Turnitin has been enabled for this assignment" persists in Canvas assignments when the API has been turned off but the LTI tool has not been turned on for that assignment even if the course is copied for a new term Of course, there is no way of knowing if this will change once Turnitin phases out the API altogether.

An instructor who wants to preserve grading in Turnitin from the API version for personal access, must save the grading as a .pdf one paper at a time before the API gets turned off. Originality reports can be saved one at a time, or reports can be reproduced by resubmitting the file to Turnitin and disregarding the first submission when interpreting the originality report.

When we turned on the LTI, I converted my existing assignments to use the LTI without issue.

Do teachers and students have to sign up for an account at Turnitin.com?

No one absolutely needs to create a separate Turnitin account. The tool uses the email address in the user's Canvas profile as an identifier, and log in from Canvas is seamless even for first time users. However, the instructor cannot use the Canvas test student for testing the LTI tool because the test student does not include a profile and email address. When I started using the LTI, I had a previous Turnitin account under the same email my Canvas profile uses, so the tool recognized me and put all submissions into my preexisting account.

If an instructor accessed Turnitin for the first time in the LTI and then later had a desire or need to access information in the web interface at Turnitin.com, the instructor can go through the forgotten password process at Turitin.com to set up a password and then can begin to use the webinterface. It is probably advisable for an instructor to have access to the Turnitin.com interface for using the iPad app, submitting for students at Turnitin.com, managing rubrics and saved grading comments, etc.

Does the LTI version of Turnitin have feature X?

Yes! All of the major Turnitin features are present in the LTI version, including originality reports and grading (with reusable comments, rubrics, etc.) through Feedback Studio, e-rater (automated comments), grade anything (PowerPoint Excel, etc.),  peer review (in Peermark), ios app, and cloud submit.

How does an instructor set up an assignment using the LTI tool?

Instructors add Turnitin as an external app to an assignment. This video demonstrates the process (assuming you have enabled the custom codes in your LTI configuration for Turnitin:

When creating an assignment, should I load Turnitin in a new tab?

I prefer to use a new tab, but there are pros and cons to both approaches. Probably the most important thing is to be consistent on your campus to avoid confusing students. Here is a video showing what each option looks like:

Update:  As of June 30, 2016, Instructors must no longer launch a Turnitin assignment to initiate the assignment in Turnitin. The Turnitin release notes state, "Students can now launch into an assignment and trigger its creation; this relieves instructors from being forced to have first interaction with the assignment before students are able to submit." However, the instructor must set an available from date and a due date in Canvas to allow students to initialize an assignment.

How do students submit to a Turnitin LTI assignment?

Go here for a .pdf tutorial on uploading a word processing file to a Turnitin assignment.

How do students complete peer reviews?

Here is a .pdf tutorial on using PeerMark.

I want to set up an assignment sequence of rough draft, peer review, and final draft.

You will need two assignments in Canvas / Turnitin. The first assignment will be for students to submit drafts and critique each other with Peermark. The second assignment will be for the submission of the final draft. This video tutorial demonstrates setting up an assignment and adding a Peer review component with Peermark. Note that only the grade on the paper in Grademark gets passed back to the canvas gradebook, so if you want to grade Peer reviews, you can add reviews into the paper grade (what I do), or you can set up an assignment with no submission and manually enter grades for the peer reviews:

How does the grading work?

An instructor can choose to grade using Turnitin's Grademark or Canvas's Speedgrader.

I do all of my grading in Turnitin's Grademark. I use the Quickmarks (saved comments I can reuse) with a rubric and enter the grade in Turnitin. The grade gets passed to the Gradebook in Canvas. It actually works quite a bit like the Canvas Speedgrader, and you can advance from student to student as well as quickly flip through all of a student's submissions for the term. I prefer Turnitin's Grademark because I can save and reuse remarks (with clickable url's!). Turnitin also can layer the originality report and Grademark, so the instructor can see the originality report while grading. Unlike the older API plugin, Quickmarks, rubrics, and PeerMark libraries persist across Canvas courses, so there is no need for importing or exporting Turnitin assets after the initial use.

As of the August 29, 2015 update, the student submits the paper to Turnitin, and Turnitin sends a copy of the paper to Canvas. The copy of the paper in Canvas may be graded in the Speedgrader, but if you wish to use a Canvas rubric, you must add the rubric to the assignment before configuring the assignment submission as an external tool.

How do students receive their feedback?

Here is a tutorial for receiving instructor feedback through Grademark. If the instructor chooses to grade in the Canvas speedgrader, then the process is the same as it is for any other Canvas assignment except that the student can also click on the Turnitin icon to view her originality report.

How can I tell if my students have viewed their feedback?

If you use Grademark for grading, you can access the Turnitin inbox through the link on your Canvas assignment:

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In the image above of a Turnitin assignment inbox, the eye icon indicates a student who has viewed feedback. The dots are students who have not seen the feedback.

Will Turnitin send a grade from Turnitin to the Canvas Gradebook?

Yes! Grades entered in Turnitin automatically get posted to the Canvas grade book. However, this is a one way link. Grades posted in Canvas do not show up in Turnitin.  

Can I use the Turnitin iPad app to grade?

I use it all of the time! In fact, the iPad Turnitin app does something nothing else does right now: you can download papers to the iPad and grade them without an Internet connection, using a rubric and Quickmarks (saved and reusable comments). Then, when you hit wifi again, the papers sync back to Turnitin (and therefore to Canvas).

Where can I see the originality report for a paper?

Icons for the originality report show up in the Canvas speedgrader and gradebook.  The full report can be seen by clicking on the icon in the speedgrader or accessing the LTI tool from the Canvas assignment or through the Turnitin iPad app.

What happens when I copy a course in Canvas?

The assignment, settings, instructions, and dates persist in Canvas when an instructor copies a course for a new term.The LTI assignment must be visited (if you load TII inside of Canvas or the LTI tool must be launched (if you load in a new tab) to reestablish the assignment and settings on the Turnitin side. Now, a student can access the assignment from Canvas to initialize the assignment in Turnitin; However, the instructor must set an available from date and a due date in Canvas to allow students to initialize an assignment.

How can I use Turnitin with an essay question on a Canvas Quiz to get an originality report?

There are two options.

The first option is to use a file upload question in the quiz. This allows students to upload a file in response to the question, and the instructor can bulk download the files from the quiz as documented in How do I create a File Upload quiz question?.  Once the students' files are downloaded in a zip file, the instructor could upload the zip file to the Submitting via quick submit https://guides.turnitin.com/01_Manuals_and_Guides/Instructor/Instructor_User_Manual/37_Quick_Submit on Turnitin's website. This is one good reason for instructors to set up accounts through Turnitin's interface and enable the quick submit in their settings.

The second option is to use essay questions in the quiz. After the students complete the quiz, the instructor can generate an item analysis. Download the item analysis and open it. Next, locate the column with the essay responses you wish to scan, and it helps here if you can search for a key word to locate the column. I always include the word "essay" in my essay questions, which lets me locate the columns I need quickly. Next, copy the column and submit it to Turnitin via cut and paste with Submitting via quick submit 

Here is a video that demonstrates using quick submit:

I want to check discussion posts for originality.

A feature request for using Turnitin on Canvas discussions is under review: . In the meantime, you can navigate to a discussion, select the entire page (ctrl A on Windows; Command A on Mac). Next, use Submitting via quick submit  on Turnitin's website and paste in the text. Some text you may not want will be included like the discussion prompts and your discussion replies to students, but if you can live with that, you can batch scan the posts, and what you copy even includes each student's name, so you know who wrote each post:

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I want to use the Turnitin LTI but need a Canvas rubric for grading / assessment

Create your assignment as a Canvas assignment without linking it to Turnitin. Save the assignment. Add your rubric to the assignment, and edit the assignment to enable Turnitin. I

Can Students submit to Turnitin LTI assignments from the Canvas mobile apps?

Not at this time. As per Canvas iOS app and External Apps(LTI), Turnitin needs to make its LTI tool fully compatible for a mobile environment. However, it is possible for students to submit essays by using the browser on their mobile device. Additionally, Turnitin's iPad app supports student use for submitting papers  and viewing feedback. For students to gain access to the iPad app, they should go through the password recovery process after accessing Turnitin at least once through the canvas integration.

Are there any complications with the Turnitin LTI tool?

There is some loss of Canvas functionality that may affect some instructors:

  • Turnitin assignments will only accept one file per assignment.
  • Using differentiated due dates as documented inHow do I assign an Assignment to an individual student or course section? breaks date syncing with Turnitin because Turnitin can only handle one set of dates per assignment. As a workaround, an instructor could set a date in Turnitin that corresponds with the last date in Canvas, allowing all groups to submit to the same assignment, but this only works if your school is not using the custom codes to automatically sync due dates with Turnitin.  Alternatively, an instructor could set up multiple assignments, releasing each assignment only to one subset of students.
  • If an instructor wishes to alter a Canvas rubric on a Turnitin assignment, she must Turn off the LTI to alter the rubric and then reinstate the LTI when done editing the rubric. Warning: disabling the LTI after students have submitted will severe the connection between Canvas and the LTI; you should only do this if students have not submitted.
  • It is not possible to use the Turnitin LTI (or any other external tool submission) with a Canvas group assignment; the option to assign to a group disappears as soon as "External Tool" is selected as the submission type.

I have a question that is not answered here.

You can comment on this blog, and I am happy to help, but I do not work for Instructure or Turnitin and have no inside information. I am an English Professor, and I use the Turnitin LTI tool in Canvas daily. 

I do not like something about the Turnitin LTI. Who should I make aware of my displeasure?

Most issues are going to be with Turnitin. File bug reports and give feedback at Turnitin - Support Wizard.  You can also contact your local Canvas admin to pass feedback to the Turnitin rep for your institution. I encourage you to do this. Let Turnitin know that Canvas users want and deserve their attention. Turnitin is a great product, but it is also an expensive one. Get the most for your money by getting your feedback to the right folks.

However, it is also true that Canvas and Turnitin are working together, and Instructure Employees have initiated discussions on the following known issues:

Turnitin + Canvas: submissions appearing on the wrong assignment

Turnitin + Canvas issue: "Resubmit to Turnitin" button occasionally results in submission getting st...

Turnitin + Canvas: Allow teachers to resubmit on behalf of students

Canvas + Turnitin: Retreive TII originality score again after due date has passed

Questions? If so, please don’t be shy!

Does Feedback Studio alter any functionality?

573 Comments
jfahs
Community Contributor

Hi Jill and Dallas,

We are keeping both versions but promoting the PF, calling it the new Turnitin Review. Our Teaching with Canvas site includes pages about the new tool: Turnitin Review: Teaching with Canvas . Although there are advantages with the Turnitin Review: Turnitin Review Features: Teaching with Canvas  it is a process to make the conversion. 

Joe (7-13-18)

gncrum
Community Contributor

Hi Joe: Thanks for posting this. Your documentation is great! I did catch one possible typo however.  On the Turnitin Review FAQ page, under the File And Upload section, the text for Two other points sub section may still refer to the Legacy Turnitin LTI as it still states students cannot submit multiple file uploads and students can submit via google drive or drop box

See here 2018-07-13_08-35-05.png 

Thanks again for sharing!

Greg

jfahs
Community Contributor

Thank you Greg! I appreciate your feedback and will make those changes next week.

Joe

lindalee
Community Contributor

Hi Greg Crum and Joe Fahs,

Regarding the "Two other points" sub-section in Joe's documentation -- yes, you can definitely submit multiple files with the Turnitin Canvas Plagiarism Framework integration. And I believe that the problems with submissions from Google Drive have been resolved. (I don't know about Dropbox.)

Best,

Linda

lindalee
Community Contributor

Hi Jill Bond,

To add to Joe Fahs' documentation links:

We piloted the new Turnitin integration during the spring semester, and rolled it out across the university at the beginning of the summer session. Institutionally, we are supporting both Turnitin LTI and the new Canvas Plagiarism Framework (CPF), though we anticipate that most teaching teams will prefer the new integration. (We have very few folks using Turnitin Feedback Studio.)

Here is what's currently posted on our Canvas at Penn support site:

Best,

Linda

RobDitto
Community Champion

For anyone with interest in connecting the Turnitin CPF ("framework" new integration) to the Canvas Teacher mobile app, here's a link to a new feature idea:

dejonghed07
Community Champion

Hi  @dhulsey ‌ - Do you know if the Paper View Request feature can be turned off at the account level so that our instructors do not receive paper view request emails? This feature raises some legal concerns.

dhulsey
Community Champion

That is a good question,  @dejonghed07 ‌. I know that you can allow professors in the same institution to see papers submitted to the institution without a paper request being necessary. I am not sure if you can turnoff receiving requests from other institutions. The easiest way might be to see if you can mark the requests as spam on your email server so that faculty never see them? Just a thought.

lindalee
Community Contributor

Your institution's Turnitin admin should be able to ask Turnitin support if this can be turned off. Not necessarily the quickest way to get a response, I know. Smiley Sad

kschneider25
Community Champion

Denise, 

I don't see a setting for turning this feature off on our account but we have our requests sent to one address for filtering and proper routing.  But I will refer to  @lindalee ‌ comment on asking your Turnitin support or I can ask our account reps who are very responsive and helpful. 

Kori

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dejonghed07
Community Champion

Thank you!

dejonghed07
Community Champion

Thanks for the idea!

dejonghed07
Community Champion

Thanks! Filtering to one email is a good idea.

jared_flaherty
Community Contributor

Greetings-

We have been using the Turnitin LTI since December of 2016.     At the time when we first started using the LTI, teachers had to activate the connection between Turnitin and Canvas.      At our institution we utilize course masters that populate into our registrar classes.       Even though the LTI has been updated as of June 2016, we are finding that any Canvas Assignments that were enable with Turnitin prior to June 2016 are still behaving the same way...in that students cannot initiate the connection between Turnitin and Canvas...   does anyone know a way to globally update this so that all of these assignment work when a student first clicks on it?      I know we can "redo" the assignment and it will behave properly, but looking for a way to easily update the old assignments that are requiring the teacher first click on it.

Thanks!

Jared

c_housley
Community Explorer

Hi Dallas. You must be thrilled to learn that most of the links to the Turnitin docs are now broken. Whatever they have done to their site, all previous links now end up on their Turnitin Support landing page. They've even hijacked the browser back button so that you stay on their site once you're there. What were they thinking?

dhulsey
Community Champion

 @c_housley ‌, sadly, my college did the same thing to its website in the middle of the fall 2018 semester, and I am still fixing broken links in my Canvas classes. I did update the broken links in this blog while taking a look at the newer guides Turnitin has published. It looks better organized and clearer than the old guides they had, so that is good!

RobDitto
Community Champion

This might now be a useful starting point for Turnitin's guides about using their product with Canvas:

By "version of Canvas," I think they don't mean version number, but rather the general-purpose LTI tool vs. the newer Framework.

(I think I replied to  @c_housley  in a different topic with this same link.)

c_housley
Community Explorer

Rob, that's excellent! I didn't find this page before so thanks.

dhulsey
Community Champion

That is a great page to start from  @RobDitto ‌!

sharon_kitching
Community Contributor

Tell me about it. And google has cached all their old pages, so now you get the redundant stuff AND can't find the new info.

lethbri2
Community Participant

We've been running both the Turnitin External Tool and Plagiarism Framework in our Canvas instance and are now encountering some issues. Many of the Turnitin courses and their assignments have been rolling over into the new semester which means courses and student accounts are not concluding and this is starting to be a problem.

After a conversation with Turnitin, they recommended that we only run one of the two integrations in Canvas and removing the External Tool seems like the right path for us. Has anyone already been through the process of moving from two integrations to just the Plagiarism Framework?  My biggest concern is 'breaking' previous assignments connected to the External Tool or having scores disappear, so we won't make any change until we have all the details.  

If you've been through this process, I'm looking forward to hearing your insight and experience!

momsadvice
Community Member

It mentions in this blog

Will Turnitin send a grade from Turnitin to the Canvas Gradebook?

Yes! Grades entered in Turnitin automatically get posted to the Canvas grade book. However, this is a one way link. Grades posted in Canvas do not show up in Turnitin.  

****this information is outdated******

According to the guide from Turnitin 

https://help.turnitin.com/feedback-studio/canvas/plagiarism-framework/teacher/frequently-asked-quest...

They advise: 

What is the Canvas Plagiarism Framework option?
Turnitin has worked with Canvas to develop an integration that will allow instructors to enable Turnitin within the Canvas Assignment workflow. This integration allows Turnitin to be enabled for a Canvas assignment, provides a Similarity Report and Spelling and Grammar suggestions and can be accessed via SpeedGrader. All grading and feedback is expected to be provided via SpeedGrader and Canvas rubrics can be used. For more information on comparing how Turnitin can be used either as an external tool or through the Plagiarism Framework, click here.

and

Can I use Turnitin's grading and Feedback tools with the Canvas Plagiarism Framework?
The Canvas Plagiarism Framework integration was designed to provide a similarity report and spelling and grammar suggestions only. All feedback and grading is expected to be done via SpeedGrader. You should not be able to access the grading and feedback layer if the integration is set up correctly. If you would like to use these features, you should use Turnitin as an external tool instead.

nwilson7
Community Champion

@momsadvice There are 2 different connections with Turnitin.  There is the framework, which seems to be the one you are referencing.  This one only provides the information you detailed in bold and stays within the Canvas SpeedGrader.  Basically this changes nothing about how you grade but you are given a similarity score from Turnitin when you are grading in SpeedGrader. 

The second integration is through the External Tool Assignment, and I believe that is what the original comment was about and is still true.  Using the External tool, you do all the grading and feedback in Turnitin (not in Canvas) and then the grade passes back to Canvas.

So, the information is not outdated, there are just two different tools being discussed. Full integration vs. the framework.

Hope this helps!

Nick