How to use Turnitin (LTI 1.1)
A Central University Turnitin Account has been created for Turnitin assignments created and submitted through Canvas. This allows classes, assignments and both staff and student users accounts to be created automatically in Turnitin without the need for any additional effort required by teaching/support staff. The integration also allows staff and students to create, submit and grade assignments as well as viewing plagiarism reports, grades and feedback without ever having to leave Canvas or login to Turnitin.
**NOTE – DO NOT LOGIN DIRECTLY TO TURNITIN TO SUBMIT – THIS MAY MEAN THAT YOUR ASSIGNMENT IS NOT ABLE TO BE GRADED**
Assignments should be submitted through Canvas using a desktop or laptop computer using a supported browser and not the Canvas Student App or mobile browsers due to limited functionality in these platforms. It is recommended that these platforms are not used to access Turnitin Assignments in Canvas due to this limited functionality.
To submit a Turnitin Assignment in Canvas go to the assignment in Canvas where a Turnitin Assignment Dashboard will display (See Fig.1). From the Turnitin Assignment Dashboard, select Upload Submission to make a submission to the assignment.
If the Upload Submission button is unavailable, you may be attempting to submit before the start date or after the due date. Click on the question mark beside the title of the assignment to check your assignment’s key dates and any additional settings that may be affecting your submission.
Note: Turnitin does not allow resubmissions to be made once the assignment due date has been reached i.e. if you have already made a submission, you will not be able to make another submission after the due date has passed.
There are 3 options in which you can submit you assignment:
- Upload Submission – directly load a file from your device.
- Text Input – direct input of text only.
- Cloud Submission – directly load a file from Google Drive and Dropbox. OneDrive option also displays and you can use your University Office 365 OneDrive to submit an assignment to Turnitin in Canvas.
Note: The Canvas supplier advises that in order to maintain consistent formatting, it is recommended that students submit files in pdf format, rather than doc. Different programs will read and display document formatting differently. Converting documents with complex formatting to PDF can help reduce the conversion errors because of the way PDF handles charts, images, equations and other formatting.
Once you have chosen or input your submission select Upload and Review (See Fig. 2) to proceed to the review stage. Alternatively, if you wish to cancel and locate a different file, click on the X to cancel the upload and from here you can re-start the process by clicking on upload submission.
Review your upload, then click Submit to Turnitin to submit (See Fig. 3). Alternatively, click Cancel Submission if you need to make any changes.
Note: If resubmissions are not enabled for this assignment, you may not be able to resolve any incorrect submissions.
You will see a submission complete notice if your submission was successful (See Fig.4). Please do not leave the submission process until you have seen this notice.
After submission, you may download a pdf copy of your digital receipt for your records in the Assignment Dashboard by selecting the document icon (See Fig.5).
To view your Similarity Report, click on your similarity score in the similarity column of the assignment dashboard (See Fig.7). You can read more about Similarity Reports, what they mean and how to interpret them on the Turnitin website.
Note: If your similarity score is unavailable, this may be a result of the assignment settings implemented by your instructor. Please contact your instructor if you think you should be able to see your score.
Also, if you have resubmitted your paper, you must wait 24 hours for your Similarity Report to be regenerated.
You can view your grade in Canvas as you would normally for all assignments. If your instructor has provided feedback using the Turnitin Grading Tools you will need to go to your assignments tab in Canvas and select the assignment you wish to view feedback on, which will display the Turnitin Assignment dashboard (See Fig. 8) To view your instructor feedback, click on your numeric grade from the Grade column of the assignment dashboard. This will open the document viewer.
Note: If your grade is unavailable, the feedback release date may not have passed. You can check this date by clicking on the question mark beside the assignment title.
Figure 8 – Turnitin Assignment dashboard – Viewing Grades and Feedback
A series of comprehensive guides are available for students on the Turnitin website (See Fig. 9). These guides give detailed guidance on how to use the Canvas Turnitin LTI integration.
Figure 9 – Student help guides for Canvas Turnitin LTI integration.
To facilitate upgrades and perform system maintenance Turnitin will occasionally be taken offline, you can view the system status and both scheduled and unplanned downtime on the Turnitin Status Page (See Fig. 10).
**Note – If you are experiencing issues with Turnitin in Canvas it is critical that these issues are reported immediately through the Help Menu in Canvas – the sooner issues are reported the sooner they can be investigated and ultimately resolved.**