View Similarity Report in Canvas

The Turnitin Similarity Report is an option that can be enabled on assignments in your Canvas course. Turnitin does not directly check for plagiarism. Instead, if your instructor enables this option, Turnitin will generate a Similarity Report that compares your uploaded submission to a database of webpages, articles, books, and other students' submissions, and highlights sections where your writing is similar to these sources. The database includes billions of webpages: both current and archived content from the internet, a repository of works other students have submitted to Turnitin in the past, and a collection of documents, which comprises thousands of periodicals, journals, and publications.

The Similarity Report provides a summary of details, including the sources matched to your submission, to use as a tool to determine if the matches are acceptable. When a Similarity Report is available for viewing, a similarity score percentage is made available.

View and Understand the Similarity Report for Students

View Turnitin Similarity Report Through Grades Section

1. Select Grades on your Course Navigation menu. 

2. In the list of your graded assessments, locate the Turnitin assignment. 

3. Click the colored flag icon next to your assignment grade to view your Turnitin Similarity Report in a new tab. The color of the flag (green, yellow, or red) will correspond with the percentage of the material the similarity report has found associated with the submission. If you don’t see a flag, the report is not available for that assignment. 
   
   

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View Turnitin Similarity Report Through Canvas Assignment

1. In the Turnitin assignment, where you've submitted your file/text, click Assignment Name.

2. Click the colored flag icon next to the submission file/text to open your Turnitin Similarity Report in a new tab. The color of the flag (green, yellow, or red) will correspond with the percentage of the material the similarity report has found associated with the submission. 
   
   

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Similarity Reports are generated for instructors upon the student’s submission, and again once the due date has passed. Please be aware that you may have two different scores after the due date because of this.

Understanding the Similarity Score for Students

The similarity score is the percentage of matched text your submission contains. This is calculated by dividing the total words in a submission by the number of words matched to outside sources.

The percentage range is 0% to 100% with the possible similarity groupings being:

• Green: 0% matching text

• Blue: 1-24% matching text

• Yellow: 25-49% matching text

• Orange: 50-74% matching text

• Red: 75-100% matching text

Similarity score scenarios

A high similarity score does not always suggest that a piece of writing has been plagiarized, just as a low similarity score does not always indicate that no plagiarism has occurred. Consider the following scenarios:

1. Submitting a document of considerable size could result in a 0% similarity score with a report that still contains matches. This is because the similarity score has been rounded to 0%, rather than being exactly 0%.

2. You may have submitted multiple drafts of the same paper to your institution's private repository, meaning your final draft has resulted in a score of 100%. To avoid this issue, we advise that you only submit your final draft to the private repository.

3. An individual within your institution has managed to acquire a copy of your document. They submit this document to the institution's private repository and receive a similarity score of 25%. You submit your original document a week later to the private repository but receive a 100% similarity score.

Additional Resources:

• What do the similarity score colors indicate?

• Similarity score scenarios