Turnitin

Owned by Christine Sandella
Last updated: Aug 01, 2024
4 min read

Turnitin is a third-party tool integrated into Canvas that assists instructors with identifying content in student writing that may come from other sources. The tool compares a student’s submission against an archive of Internet documents, Internet data, a repository of previously submitted papers, and subscription repository of periodicals, journals, and publications. Then, Turnitin creates an originality report, which can be viewed by both faculty and students to identify where within a submission text matches another source.

Turnitin does not detect plagiarism, it will only match text within a student's submission to text located elsewhere. Correct interpretation of these results by both faculty and students is essential for the successful use of Turnitin.  

Why Use Turnitin?

Turnitin is tightly integrated with the Canvas Assignment tool, so it can be enabled and used seamlessly when needed. Though Turnitin is sometimes perceived as a "plagiarism detector," faculty and students can use Turnitin to see patterns of source use and misuse, and these patterns can help guide teaching, writing, and revision practices.

Use Cases for Turnitin

  • Provide a high-level report of student source and citation patterns that can be used in writing revision and instruction.

  • Share line-edit comments on student writing.

  • Review writing and citation use independent of course use.

Use Turnitin in Canvas

  1. In your Canvas course, click the Assignments link.

  2. Click the +Assignment button to add a new assignment.

  3. Fill in the assignment’s name, details, total points possible, and choose your preferred display of grades.

  4. From the Submission Type dropdown menu, select Online. Then, from the Online Entry Options menu, select either Text Entry and/or File Uploads.

    Canvas assignment submission type menu with red boxes around online under submission type and the checked file uploads fields under online entry options.

     

  5. Once you select your online entry option, the Plagiarism Review settings will appear. Select Turnitin from this drop-down menu.

  6. Enabling Turnitin will allow for the selection of additional settings. These options are outline below:

    1. Exclude from Similarity Report: You can select some custom settings for what to include or exclude from Turnitin’s identification of potential issues. These settings will determine the Similarity Report’s default display. However, many of these settings can be adjusted while viewing a student submission’s originality report.

      1. Exclude bibliographic materials: Turnitin will identify segments of the student’s submission that look like a bibliography or citation section.

      2. Exclude quote materials: Turnitin will ignore parts of the student’s submission that are in between double quotation marks.

    2. Submission Indexing: Submissions will be indexed in Seton Hall’s private repository and will be available for comparison in Similarity Reports by other users within our organization. Note, selecting this option will add submissions from Seton Hall to the submitted works repository, which allows users outside of Seton Hall to check for similarity between their submissions and ours.

    3. Generate Similarity Reports: Select when students will be able to view their Turnitin report.
      Note: Similarity reports are generated when the student first submits or resubmits an assignment prior to the due date, then again on the assignment due date once all submissions have been sent.  It is strongly encouraged that faculty allow students to view the report immediately, so students can use the report as a learning tool to improve their citation skills.

    A display of the Turnitin additional settings, with a check next to submission indexing. The immediately and on due date option under Generate Similarity Reports is also selected.

     

  7. Once you’ve enabled Turnitin for the assignment, you can continue the steps for creating assignments in Canvas.

Note: Turnitin MUST have a due date. If you do not set a due date, Turnitin will set a due date for 1 week after you save and publish the assignment.

Turnitin AI Detection Capability

The Turnitin tool used in Canvas has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) detection feature. This feature will help faculty determine if generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, have been used by students when submitting work in their class. The AI writing detector can identify 97% of ChatGPT and GPT3 authored writing, and has a less than 1/100 false positive rate. It can be used to help faculty make an informed decision, but is not meant to be used as a sole determinant for whether or not a student has committed academic misconduct.

Learn how to enable AI Detection in your assignments.

Additional Resources and Turnitin’s Vendor Guides