Creating a Turnitin Assignment in Canvas

The new Canvas/Turnitin integration has many additional features, including rubrics, grammar checking, commenting tools, grading tools, and more. More information about these tools can be found in the Turnitin LTI Instructor Guide Links to an external site.. In order to continue to use Turnitin, you must follow these guidelines for any new assignments you wish to create. If you have existing assignments that use Turnitin, you can modify them just by editing the assignment and following the same guidelines, beginning with Step 2.

Note that some of these steps may be different from what you have done in the past.

Step 1: From within CANVAS, follow your normal steps in creating a new assignment:

1. Log into Canvas and enter any of your courses.  
2. Click on the Assignments link in the Course Menu to go to the Assignments page.
   
   
   
3. Click the blue + Add Assignment button to create a new assignment.
4. Give your new assignment a title and include instructions, point value, etc., as you normally would.
   
   
   

Step 2: Add the Turnitin function to your assignment

Note: To modify an existing assignment, Edit the assignment and begin with this step.

1. Select External Tool from the Submission Type dropdown menu.    
   (This may be set to Online by default.)
   
   
   
2. Click the Find button, then scroll through the list of tools and select Turnitin LTI 1.1.
    
   
   
3. Do NOT check the “Load This Tool in NewTab” box.
4. Complete setting up your assignment, selecting Due and Availability dates, etc.
5. Save (or Save & Publish) the Assignment.
   
   
   
   

Optional Settings

The new Turnitin tool has a number of Optional settings, including restricting file types, late submissions, student access to originality reports, and more. For more information, please view Turnitin Assignment Settings Links to an external site..

Click the Settings link in the upper right of the Turnitin Assignment Inbox to display settings for the Assignment. Points and dates will be automatically carried over from your Canvas assignment setup. From this window, you can adjust the optional settings as you would like.

The following items are a few key Optional Settings to pay attention to:

Under the Submission Settings heading

• Allow late submissions – be sure to check this box if you want students to be able to submit the assignment after the Due Date.

Under the Similarity Report heading

• Generate Reports drop-down menu – there are three options
  • Generate reports immediately (students cannot resubmit)
  • Generate reports immediately (students can resubmit until due date)
    (choose this option if you want your students to be able to see their reports and resubmit)
  • Generate reports on the due date (students can resubmit until due date)

NOTE: The Turnitin tool does not allow students to resubmit after the due date. If “late submissions” are allowed under Submission Settings, they will be able to make their FIRST submission after the due date, but no students will be able to resubmit once the due date has expired.

• Allow students to view Similarity Reports – be sure to check this if you want your students to be able to see their own reports.

Under the Additional Settings heading:

• Save these settings for future use – Check this box if you want to make your selected settings the default settings for your Turnitin assignments.

More information and instructions can be found on the Turnitin Assignment Inbox Links to an external site. support page.

Viewing assignment submissions and Turnitin similarity reports

After the Assignment has been created, the Assignment page in Canvas will contain the Turnitin Assignment Inbox.


Once you begin receiving submissions, you will also be able to access the papers through the Assignment Inbox, which will remain active on the Assignment page. You will also be able to retrieve the papers and view reports through the Speedgrader (as you may have done previously).