Have you discovered submissions that are visible in Turnitin (TII) but not in Canvas? Or have students reported that they have submitted an assignment but it is not visible in Canvas?
This has likely been caused by a student submitting directly through the TII website, rather than submitting through Canvas, with several instances reported to date. This sometimes occurs when a student experiences difficulties submitting work to Canvas due to personal browser/device privacy settings which would prevent the TII assignment window displaying in Canvas e.g. Safari blocks all 3rd-party cookies by default. Therefore, a student would have no option to submit their assignment in Canvas so they login to the TII website and submit directly.
To help deter student’s from doing this, when using TII for a Canvas assignment, it is strongly recommended that the assignment instructions state that:
- Students should not under any circumstances login and submit directly through the Turnitin website.
- If you are having difficulties submitting you should Submit a Support Ticket via Help Menu in Canvas as soon as possible.
If these instructions are not present or overlooked and a student submits an assignment directly to the Turnitin website, rather than through Canvas, the submission and similarity report will not pass to Canvas and it will not be possible to grade or provide feedback on the submission using the Speedgrader.
The following options outline a number available ways you can proceed should this occur.
OPTION 1 – Delete the submission and request that the student resubmits via Canvas.
There are several scenarios where this may be possible and/or subsequent steps to allow students to resubmit via Canvas:
Scenario A
The assignment due date has not been reached and the TII assignment settings are configured to allow students to resubmit until the due date. Any submissions made directly in TII will need to be deleted by a staff member. Please see the following guide How staff can delete a submission in a Canvas Turnitin Assignment. Once the submission has been deleted the student should be advised that they should resubmit in Canvas, if they again experience difficulties when attempting to submit try using an alternative browser e.g. Chrome/Firefox/Edge and/or raise a support ticket via the Help menu in Canvas.
Scenario B
The assignment due date has not been reached and the TII assignment settings are configured so students cannot resubmit. The student will not be able to resubmit. The TII assignment settings (see link below) will need to be changed to allow students to resubmit until the due date. Once the settings have been changed the student should be advised that they should resubmit in Canvas, if they again experience difficulties when attempting to submit try using an alternative browser e.g. Chrome/Firefox/Edge and/or raise a support ticket via the Help menu in Canvas.
Scenario C
The assignment due date has been reached and the student is not able to resubmit as TII does not allow late re-submissions. Any submissions made directly in TII will need to be deleted by a staff member (see link below) and the TII assignment settings configured to allow late submissions. Once these settings have been changed the student should be advised that they should resubmit in Canvas and if they again experience difficulties when attempting to submit they should try using an alternative browser e.g. Chrome/Firefox/Edge and/or raise a support ticket via the Help menu in Canvas. The student submission will be flagged as late in Canvas and scores adjusted according to any late penalties settings configured in the course. This status can be overridden if required via the grade detail tray.
OPTION 2 – Grade and provide feedback in the TII Feedback Studio and input grades in the Speedgrader.
No feedback is passed to Canvas Speedgrader from TII, therefore if a staff member has given feedback in TII the student will need to go to the assignment and view the given feedback via the TII Assignment Inbox in Canvas. This will be visible up to the Until Date that has been set, if any, in the Canvas Assignment.
Grades will only pass to the Canvas Speedgrader from TII when the student has submitted through Canvas. Any grades for submissions made directly through the TII website will require manual input/upload to the Canvas Gradebook. Grades do not pass from Canvas to TII therefore there is a potential risk that disparate grades will display to students in either system.
To use TII Feedback Studio click on the blue pencil icon related to a student’s paper in the TII assignment inbox. Alternatively, click the grade you have assigned to the paper to make any changes. Further detail on the grading tools in the TII Feedback Studio is available on the Turnitin Website.
**Please note that the Options and Scenarios above are based on assignments where anonymity is not enabled. If you believe that students have submitted an assignment with anonymity enabled directly through the Turnitin website please Submit a Support Case via the Help Menu in Canvas for further support.**
Further information – Turnitin Training and Guides:
- Turnitin Settings (Getting Started with Canvas Course)
- How Staff can delete a submission in a Canvas Turnitin assignment
- Staff Guide – Turnitin within Canvas
- Student Guide – Turnitin within Canvas
- Staff Training – Turnitin Essentials in Canvas
