Turnitin in Canvas

Turnitin has been seamlessly integrated into Canvas to ensure students can submit to Canvas, while ensuring you can see the similarity score while marking. Students can view their overall similarity score via their grades once they have submitted.

We recommend allowing multiple attempts on assignments for students prior to the due date. This gives students the opportunity to review their similarity report and improve their own referencing and academic writing skills.

Used by instructors, Turnitin is a tool that checks for similarities and matches in student work. It does not check for plagiarism. The report is indicative and should not be used as the sole basis for adverse actions against a student.

Setting up a Turnitin Assignment

To ensure student assignment submissions are checked through Turnitin, follow the recommended process for assignment set up in Canvas. This will allow the students to immediately see their Turnitin report once they have submitted their assessment.

Accessing a Turnitin similarity report

When an assignment has been set up with Turnitin turned on, the similarity score will be available via Grades and SpeedGrader. You will be able to click into the similarity report for a more detailed view of the overall score. Turnitin has created a resource to assist in interpreting the Similarity report.

Turnitin AI Writing Detection

Turnitin can highlight text within student submissions which may have been written by AI. While this is indicative and should not be used as the sole basis for adverse actions against a student, it can assist in investigating suspicions of academic misconduct. Submissions need to have at least 300 words of prose text for the AI detection to apply. Students are unable to see the AI detection in their Turnitin report. The AI writing detection model may not always be accurate.

How to access the AI writing indicator

1. Ensure the assignment has been set up as a Turnitin assignment in Canvas. Once submissions have been received access SpeedGrader in Canvas for the relevant submissions.
2. Navigate to the relevant student submission and click on the similarity score to open in Turnitin Feedback studio.
3. The AI writing indicator will appear on the side panel, and after a short period of processing will display one of three states. Please refer to Turnitin’s AI Writing Detection guide for information on the states.
4. Within the Turnitin interface further FAQs, resources and guides are linked from Turnitin to assist you in interpreting the report.

An extensive list of frequently asked questions may also be found on Turnitin's website.

Further information on AI for staff can be found on the ChatGPT and Generative AI in Assessment website.

The below resources have been developed to assist staff and students in using Turnitin effectively.

Staff - Using Turnitin	Students - Using Turnitin
A guide on how staff can use Turnitin reports effectively	A guide on how students can use Turnitin effectively