Canvas and Turnitin

[dhulsey]

• Introduction
• What is "Feedback Studio"?
• Does Feedback Studio alter any functionality?
• As a local Canvas Administrator, how do I configure the Turnitin LTI?
• Can my institution enable both the API version and the LTI version as we transition to the LTI?
• What happens to API enabled assignments when the API version gets shut off?
• Do teachers and students have to sign up for an account at Turnitin.com?
• Does the LTI version of Turnitin have feature X?
• How does an instructor set up an assignment using the LTI tool?
• When creating an assignment, should I load Turnitin in a new tab?
• How do students submit to a Turnitin LTI assignment?
• How do students complete peer reviews?
• I want to set up an assignment sequence of rough draft, peer review, and final draft.
• How does the grading work?
• How do students receive their feedback?
• How can I tell if my students have viewed their feedback?
• Will Turnitin send a grade from Turnitin to the Canvas Gradebook?
• Can I use the Turnitin iPad app to grade?
• Where can I see the originality report for a paper?
• What happens when I copy a course in Canvas?
• How can I use Turnitin with an essay question on a Canvas Quiz to get an originality report?
• I want to check discussion posts for originality.
• I want to use the Turnitin LTI but need a Canvas rubric for grading / assessment
• Can Students submit to Turnitin LTI assignments from the Canvas mobile apps?
• Are there any complications with the Turnitin LTI tool?
• I have a question that is not answered here.
• I do not like something about the Turnitin LTI. Who should I make aware of my displeasure?

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:

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:

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:

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:

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?

[jared_flaherty]

@Adam King, I will take that bet.   

[brendaa]

Adam,

The "Test Student" from Student View doesn't work with Turnitin Assignments using the LTI integration.  It returns an error message.  I think it is because that Test account doesn't have a valid email address.  That is a change with the new LTI integration that caused many of our faculty to call us because they tested everything in Student View and then received this error message.  I too, would love for this integration to have a way for faculty to submit papers, but I'm not sure just having this available from the Canvas side will help with Turnitin.  It would probably need to be an option on the Turnitin side of the integration, as it was in Blackboard.

[Chris_Hofer]

Hi  @Adam_King ​...

Actually, using the "Student View" to try and submit an assignment via the Turnitin LTI doesn't work.  The LTI is looking for an e-mail address...which the "Student View" doesn't have.  You'd have to create a separate dummy account with an e-mail address in order to do this.  Hopefully I am interpreting your question correctly.

[dwillmore]

Forgive my ignorance here, but isn't there a new API available from Turnitin for use?  I realize the old API is being shut down, but did they replace it with a new API or are they solely using the LTI standard?  It sounds like Blackboard may either have a better LTI implementation or a tighter API integration.    I don't personally know anything about Blackboard and their Turnitin integration so I am taking that information second and third hand.

I fully understand the LTI is better from a developer point of view, but from the user point of view it seems to be causing some concern.

[tdelillo]

Now THAT would be interesting. We've had so many complaints and bugs since we switched from the old API to the LTI, that I have been seriously considering switching it back, support or no support. Hmmm...

[crafte]

Same here. We have been spending a lot of time battling problems since switching to the LTI. Turnitin tech support has not been very helpful so far either. The connection between Turnitin and SpeedGrader is currently our biggest headache (besides the usual slow turnaround for originality reports at peak times). Our instructors have been asking if we could research alternate solutions.

[morris_admin]

I was surprised that there hasn't been more chatter here about the LTI. There have been so many issues. The connection between SpeedGrader and Turnitin is obviously a big problem. There are also just so many contingencies to get the LTI to work, which is a lot for our faculty to manage:

• It requires a due date or it locks students out in two weeks
• If you set it up too close to the due date, it throws an error with the post date
• If you don't click on the load button it won't activate the assignment
• If you don't set the advanced settings in Turnitin, students can't see the originality report or they can't resubmit, or they can't submit late.

This is just a terrible user experience for instructors and students.

[tdelillo]

Thank you for solving a mystery for me! I had seen that message about the "an instructor must access this assignment to activate it" and could not figure out how it was possible for an instructor to create and save the assignment without activating it, since Turnitin loads as soon as you save. But not if you choose the "Load This Tool in a New Tab" option!

[dhulsey]

• It requires a due date or it locks students out in two weeks

--I hadn't noticed this one since all of my assignments have due dates, but I can see why this would be the case because Turnitin does default to a due date two weeks from when the assignment was created. If you set and save the advanced settings to accept late assignments in TII, you could just ignore the due date in Turnitin; students would always be able to submit.

• If you set it up too close to the due date, it throws an error with the post date

I am not sure I understand this one.

• If you don't click on the load button it won't activate the assignment

This is true; you have to click the LTI button to activate the assignment on the Turnitin side.

• If you don't set the advanced settings in Turnitin, students can't see the originality report or they can't resubmit, or they can't submit late.

This is also true, but if you always want students to be able to submit late and to  see reports, you can save your own defaults. The consistent instructor only has to set these once, and they will be the same on all future assignments.

[brendaa]

What is this "Load" or "LTI button"?  We are using the LTI integration and I don't see anything like that.  We have the "Save" & "Save & Publish" buttons on the Canvas side.  Once the instructor clicks one of those they are automatically redirected to the Turnitin Assignment Inbox and Settings page.  We direct faculty to check the Optional Settings there, but it was my understanding that if you "saved" those settings there was no need to open them each time unless changes were needed. Is it the "Submit" button?  If faculty don't make changes, do they still need to click on "Submit"?

[dhulsey]

Hey, Brenda! If you choose to have Turnitin load in a new tab, then you must open the assignment  by clicking on the button. Professors do this to initiate the assignment in TII, and students do  the same to access the assignment.  It looks like this:

As a general rule, I prefer to load things in a new tab whenever possible, but your comment has inspired me to play around with not using the new tab. Maybe not loading in a new tab will simplify things for some users. As for the advanced settings, you should only have to save those once unless (like me) you use different settings for a rough draft and final draft sequence.

[brendaa]

We started out thinking we should recommend loading in a new tab, but if you don't choose that option, it automatically redirects the faculty to the page with the Turnitin Assignment Inbox and settings so they have a reminder that there are additional options to set. 

I heard back from Canvas support about our issue with Turnitin submissions not appearing in Speedgrader and they are recommending students resubmit.  As others on this conversation have pointed out, it's too late for that. They also report "Our engineering team is working with TurnItIn concerning this behavior, as well as the possibility of adding a feature that allows teachers to re-submit assignment submissions that run into these issues, from within the LTI tool in Canvas." Hoping a fix comes soon!

[tdelillo]

To clarify for folks who may not be very familiar with the External Tool submission type, there is an option to "Load This Tool In A New Tab".

[snugent]

morris_admin​

Thank you for pointing out some of the issues you are seeing. This has helped me troubleshoot some of the issues we are seeing with TurnItIn assignments. The error about the instructor not activating the assignment had been a mystery to me. I couldn't duplicate it and it was happening randomly. I was able to fix it by adjusting the Available From date in Canvas to match the TurnItIn start date. In all the cases there was no set Available From date in Canvas.

[morris_admin]

 @brendaa ​ I have been wondering if we should stop loading TII in a new tab, so I appreciate your insight! I have had other LTIs break when we didn't load them in a new tab, so it's been my recommendation for each LTI, but it sounds like you have had a better experience launching it in the window? Any browser issues with setting it up that way? If not, I'll change my recommendation/guide.

 @dhulsey ​I have had a couple of users that were blocked from creating an assignment in Canvas because they received an error regarding the post date on the TII side. In my testing, this has something to do with how the LTI automatically generates the post date, especially when the due date is very close to the creation date, but I haven't had the chance to exactly pinpoint the problem.

[brendaa]

Jessica,

We haven't had any reports of problems with setting TII to just open, without opening in a new tab. It really opens in the "next" window.  The vast majority of our faculty use Chrome or Firefox, so it is possible there are issues with Safari or IE.  Opening in a new tab seemed to add to the confusion and likelihood that faculty would skip the step of setting the Turnitin specific settings.  Student submissions (not counting the issue with submissions appearing in Turnitin but not Canvas) have also been successful.  Since Turnitin has a https:// protocol, there shouldn't be any issue that requires opening in a new tab, but I could be missing something.

[crafte]

 @brendaa ​, thank you for the information concerning submissions not appearing in SpeedGrader.  I just opened a ticket for an assignment where students resubmitted their papers but they still did not appear in SpeedGrader. There were no submission indicators under Grades either. The workaround to resubmit does not always work. I hope Instructure and Turnitin can fix that problem and the many others.

[jared_flaherty]

Anybody else had an issue with the Canvas LTI not allowing an assignment creation due to the Canvas Course title being too long?    I've got a course title with 115 characters and it is throwing an error stating I can only have 100 characters.   

[vrs07nl]

Hi everyone

There is too much information here now to know if this issue has been raised yet

I have a situation that has arisen today where a student submitted well in time to Tii assessment in Canvas - it shows in the Assessment submission page but the student is showing as anon submission in the GradeCentre. I cannot see how to synchronise Ti and Canvas to resolve this ( easily done in BB) - any thoughts?  @dhulsey ​

I have raised a ticket but thought you might know too!

just seen this too see https://community.canvaslms.com/message/28763#comment-28763

[dhulsey]

I see that you have already found Submissions through Turnitin LTI not appearing in SpeedGrader, Nicola. All I can say is file a bug report with both Canvas and TII. The immediate option is for the instructor to use Grademark for grading instead of the Speedgrader.  I wish I could be of more help!

[dhulsey]

Thanks for the clarification, Jessica. I haven't seen the date bug, but if I do, I will file a bug report with Canvas and TII.

I have been playing around with not loading the TII LTI in a new screen, and it seems to work fine. Brenda, I was wondering if you know what happens if an instructor copies the course for use in another term. Does the assignment automatically initiate in TII, or does the instructor have to visit the assignment page to activate it?

I will probably keep using the new tab if only because we use a few different LTI tools and have students accustomed to looking for the button that opens the new tab.

[jared_flaherty]

Since we utilize course masters I tested what happens when a turnitin enabled course assignment is copied...     I don't think the assignment "automatically initiates in turnitin" UNTIL a student OR instructor clicks on it.      I tested what happens when a student clicks on it first and it works just fine.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE!!!

After a course copy, an instructor must click on the assignment FIRST...  I was wrong in the above statement.

Here is the error:

Sorry, we could not process your request

This LTI assignment is inactive, an instructor must access this assignment to activate it.

[dhulsey]

Oh, wow. Thanks, Jared! That is a benefit over using new tabs because the instructor has to do the initiating with the new tab option.

[brendaa]

That's good news!  Thanks for testing.  We just started using the LTI this semester so we haven't had any real world experience with copying Turnitin assignments so far.

[jared_flaherty]

Just remember to stick the below stuff into the Custom Fields in the APP and the dates and stuff will be reflected in the turnitin view.    I guess one thing I should look at more is how the Instructor Settings is affected by a student clicking on it first... I suppose it will be the default settings but what I am really hoping is that if the instructor set it up to use for all of their assignments, that those custom settings are automatically dispalyed when the scenario arises when a student clicks on it first.  

custom_duedate=$Canvas.assignment.dueAt.iso8601

assignmentid=$Canvas.assignment.id

custom_submission_title=$Canvas.assignment.title

custom_maxpoints=$Canvas.assignment.pointsPossible

custom_startdate=$Canvas.assignment.unlockAt.iso8601

[jared_flaherty]

ALERT, I was wrong in my prior statement concerning a course copy and if the LTI is already set and ready to go... here is the error if a student clicks on the assignment first... 

Sorry, we could not process your request

This LTI assignment is inactive, an instructor must access this assignment to activate it.

[MattHanes]

Starting last week, several of our users are getting errors about their classes being expired. Turnitin support said that courses are set at 6 months by default. Our courses are full academic year. Has anyone run into this issue and determined a solution? Why would the courses created in Turnitin not match the Canvas course end date?

[cstevenson]

We were experiencing the 'user does not exist'.  We had our teachers create another Turnitin assignment.  They did not publish it and everything starting working again. 

Our courses are year long too and our teachers create their content over the summer.  We have had this issue two years in a row where their courses expire in the Turnitin world.

[MattHanes]

That's the message we just received from TurnItIn Support. I find that to be ridiculously unintuitive. The courses should be created with the same end date as the Canvas course in my opinion. Thanks for the information!

[dhulsey]

Good afternoon all! I received an email a few hours ago stating the following (emphasis added by me):

We are excited to announce the release of Turnitin Feedback Studio™! Feedback Studio is Turnitin reimagined for the modern classroom. 

Feedback Studio is now available to all current Turnitin subscribing schools and institutions. As the Turnitin admin for your institution, we are reaching out in advance to provide you with important information and resources about the new Turnitin. The choice is yours: You can begin using Feedback Studio right away, or continue to use the existing Turnitin and implement Feedback Studio later.

Feedback Studio, as far as I can tell, consists of an interface design overhaul for Turnitin. You can take a tour of Feedback Studio here: Turnitin Feedback Studio Demo.​ You can read some FAQ here: ​Frequently Asked Questions - Guides.turnitin.com

For me this raises more questions than answers because it is not clear how this change will affect the Turnitin integration with Canvas via LTI if a school flips the switch and tries the beta.

I did see that Turnitin would have reps at Instructurecon, and I plan to have a prewritten list of questions ready to go. As if things weren't already busy with the MLA about to release revised citation formats.

[snugent]

Oh My!! I read the FAQs and saw this. This isn't much time to prepare but this is TurnItIn we are talking about. :smileyshocked:

How long will Beta Mode be available?

Starting April 18, 2016, every Turnitin and TurnitinUK account will have the option to enable the Beta Mode at the administrator level. This provides you with an opportunity to update training materials, prepare staff training sessions, and notify key stakeholders at your institution.

Feedback Studio will eventually be transitioned out of Beta Mode and made the default service for Turnitin customers, with the transition date aligned with regional academic terms.  In July 2016, Feedback Studio will move to general availability and be enabled on all Northern Hemisphere accounts by default. Administrators who do not yet feel ready to fully support Feedback Studio may opt out and continue to use the old version of Turnitin until the end of 2016.

Feedback Studio will remain in opt-in choice for institutions in Australia, New Zealand, and select other Southern Hemisphere countries until December 2016.

In early 2017, Feedback Studio will fully replace Turnitin. After this time, accounts may remain on the old Turnitin under special circumstances only.

[vrs07nl]

snugent​

We were notified as Ti admins of Turnitin Feedback Studio today and i am joining a webinar on it this Thursday

[vrs07nl]

This in from Turnitin today re turning off old integration with canvas

Turnitin has recently released a Turnitin Canvas LTI integration, which was developed in partnership with Instructure, the makers of Canvas. This integration is replacing a prior Canvas integration which relied upon a Turnitin developed API.

We are asking that our Canvas users begin to adopt the new Turnitin Canvas LTI integration by the end of 2016. Early adoption is recommended to allow for plenty of time to train end users on the new integration.

With the release of the new Turnitin Canvas LTI integration, we will begin retiring the legacy API which will no longer be available starting in 2017. The only Turnitin-supported route for integration with the Canvas learning management system from January 2017 forward will be the Turnitin Canvas LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) option. LTI is a standard created by the IMS Global Learning Consortium which aims to establish a standard way of integrating rich learning applications, and many--if not most--integrated solutions are moving in this direction of standardization.

The new Turnitin Canvas LTI integration will give our Canvas users full access to all Turnitin functionality (OriginalityCheck, GradeMark, and PeerMark) and, most importantly, will ensure that our Canvas users receive any new features and fixes as soon as we introduce them into the product. Moving forward, we hope that this will make it easier to administer and use Turnitin for the Canvas community.

For those who are wondering, it is possible to run the legacy Canvas integration and Canvas LTI integration in parallel during the transition period. 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. 

In the near future, the Turnitin Integrations team will be reaching out to each customer directly who has not yet made the transition to the LTI integration to offer support and assistance during the transition.

We urge you to look over the resources we have provided below, which we hope will help to answer the most common questions and address any concerns.

Admin Guides for Canvas Turnitin LTI Integration Set Up:
Admin Guide (provided by Canvas)
Admin Guide (provided by Turnitin)

Other Resources:
Comprehensive Canvas User Blog Post
credit: Dallas Hulsey, Professor, English - Department Chair, New Mexico Junior College

Screencasts:

Canvas (LTI Tool) - Administrator Configuration

Canvas (LTI Tool) - Student User Video

Canvas (LTI Tool) - Instructor User Video

Please contact integrations@turnitin.com to request a separate Turnitin environment to be set up for the purposes of testing the Canvas LTI integration

[stevenwilliams]

We just got this same message yesterday. I'm inclined to keep my institution on the Legacy integration until the end of December instead of making the switch this summer, since it continues to provide a deeper Canvas integration (supporting things like rubrics, groups, and differentiated assignments without the need to configure the assignment in multiple places).

[vrs07nl]

 @Adam_King ​ and  @dhulsey ​

In Blackboard for  group work - we use BB group assignment for marking  and Tii for a checking purposes - so one member of each team submits to both. Will need to do same for Canvas groups where Tii checkng needed and do not use quick submit or bulk upload directly in Tii

[gncrum]

Hello:

What is the general opinion from instructors at your campus about the the Grademark feature in Turnitin? Do instructors who use Turnitin a lot use the grademark tool to give feedback as opposed the Speedrader-Crocodoc? It seems to me more robust and the interface is cleaner than  Crocodoc? I'm wondering if I should promote it more, especially with the improvements that seem to be coming in the Turnitin Feedback studio.  My only concern is steering instructors down two divergent paths when it comes to giving feedback to students.

Thanks!

Greg

[brendaa]

Most instructors don't use GradeMark, but the ones that do prefer it over Crocodoc.  They really love the ability to save "marks" and find it faster for pointing out common issues. Faculty who teach writing courses especially prefer Grademark for the depth of options for giving feedback.

I think the new Feedback studio will increase the number of faculty that use GradeMark.  We may also use the switch to Feedback as an opportunity to promote it more.  Students have just as hard a time finding the feedback in GradeMark as they do in Crocodoc. I think the Turnitin integration with Canvas is confusing to students when it comes to finding that feedback, but they also find it difficult to click on "View Feedback" to see the Crocodoc markup.

[snugent]

Hi Greg

I agree with you that the GradeMark tools are more robust, but most instructors prefer the SpeedGrader. The other issue is how to direct students to TurnItIn feedback. If students return to back to the assignment page,  they will see the TurnItIn assignment dashboard with the PeerMark feedback as long as the instructor did not use an Until date with the assignment. If an Until date is set on TurnItIn assignment, the assignment becomes locked and the TurnItIn assignment dashboard is no longer visible to students. However, I don't think many students return back to the assignment page. I think they tend to go to the grades page to see feedback. When they click an assignment title on the grades page, this will display the assignment details page. If the instructor grades with the SpeedGrader, students can click View Feedback to see any annotations.  If the instructor grades with GradeMark, the only thing students will see here is the grade. If an instructor is going to use PeerMark, they should leave a side comment in the SpeedGrader directing students back to the TurnItIn assignment page so they can see the PeerMark feedback. Unfortunately this increases the instructor's workload. It would be better if there was tighter TurnItIn integration so PeerMark feedback can accessed from the assignment details page.

[985541993]

Our school ran a pilot in January 2016 - March 2016.  We used the LTI.

A fundamental difference between the two services is that Canvas does not require a user to have an email.  Turnitin does require a user have an email.  The LTI didn't resolve this most basic conflict during our pilot.

[stevenwilliams]

In the interest of keeping the user experience simple, we don't have Grademark or Peermark enabled in our Turnitin-Canvas integration at this time -- Grademark, in particular, overlaps too closely in functionality with SpeedGrader, and focusing our attention on training and support for SpeedGrader provides a more consistent experience for instructors and students. We're beginning to look more into Peermark, since it appears to provide a feature set that extends and complements what's available in Canvas, with less duplication of functionality than Grademark.

[dhulsey]

Hi,  @stevenwilliams ​. If you are referring to the Feedback Studio update, then this interface update will occur across all Turnitin products. This summer, Feedback Studio will become the default interface for Turnitin everywhere, including the legacy (API) integration. I did read that you can opt out of the update until the end of this year, but the interface does look much more modern and feels more responsive.

I also learned from the TII webinar today that the Peermark interface will not be changing at this time, but it sounded like they are working on a separate update for that.

[dhulsey]

I love grading in Grademark, and the iPad app has made my life easier on many, many occasions. Everyone in my department uses Grademark to grade and others around campus have started to see how much time reusing common comments can save.

Having said that, practices at different schools vary widely as some of the other comments already show.

Also, with an impending interface update in the next few months, I would probably switch to the new interface before starting to train instructors with Grademark at this point. I hope that helps!

[stevenwilliams]

 @dhulsey ​, Feedback Studio looks great -- but my university may still opt-out through the end of Fall in order to simplify change management, and release LTI/Feedback Studio simultaneously when we lose access to the Legacy integration in January 2017.

[dhulsey]

That makes a lot of sense. Instructors might balk at many changes; it is best to do it all at once.

[jfahs]

Although the Turnitin LTI app has made a lot of progress in the past few months, there seems to be a backwards step in ease-of-use and efficiency as compared to the legacy API when setting up each and every assignment.

To set up an Assignment with the TII API an instructor currently does the following:

1. Add an Assignment
2. Apply settings such as Points and Assignment Group
3. Choose Submission Type = File Uploads
4. Click the Enable Turnitin Submissions
5. Click Save

Setting up an Assignment with the LTI app involves the following steps

1. Add an Assignment
2. Apply settings such as Points and Assignment Group
3. Choose Submission Type = External Tool
4. Click the Find button
5. Depending on browser*** widen the window so there are two scroll bars
6. Using the inner scrollbar scroll down to Turnitin and click to select it. Depending on the number of apps TII can be far down the list
7. Click the Select button
8. Click the Save button

*** Browsers we support: Chrome Mac/Win, Firefox Mac/Win, Safari

It is not just the extra number of steps but the scrolling and selecting of the TII LTI. Also, the naming transition from Enable Turnitin Submissions to External Tool will most likely confuse first time users and from an instructional support point of view require continuous and repetitive communication when the API checkbox disappears.

Does anyone have suggestions on how to facilitate the TII LTI setup process for instructors? Should the UX concern in setting up an Assignment be addressed to Instructure, Turnitin, or both?

Thank you for your input. What a fantastic community resource!

[dhulsey]

Joe, it sounds as if your critique involves the Canvas interface for selecting an external tool, so this particular concern affects all external tool assignments from any LTI and should be addressed with Instructure. I agree that the double scroll bars for the external tool window are awkward. Perhaps a feature request to Instructure would be a good way to address this. I would vote in favor of  a redesign of the external tool selection interface.

[jared_flaherty]

I believe 2 releases ago there was an upgrade to the External Tool selection box which now allows users to search for the tool rather than just scroll.  

I created a screencast video for the setup process and instructors haven't had any issues... yet.

[dhulsey]

You are right! I forgot about that, Jared. I should probably start using the search and will do that in the video tutorial overhaul I am planning when we switch to the new TII interface in May.

[tdelillo]

What do you mean by "search for the tool"? As far as I can tell, the choices are still to manually add a URL or to click on Find and scroll through the list. Did I miss something?

[dhulsey]

I was playing around with the external tool interface this morning. I believe Jared is referring to these release notes: Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-02-20)​. Both the release notes and the interface give the suggestion of a search box function, but after about half an hour of attempts, it appears that Tracey is correct: you can manually add a url or click "Find" and scroll through the list.

Having approached the interface with a fresh set of eyes and expectations, I realize now how confusing that interface could be for an instructor opening it up for the first time.  @jfahs ​ is correct; the interface needs an overhaul. If no one else has done it by the time I am done with finals, I will file a feature request.