Canvas and Turnitin

[dhulsey]

• Introduction
• What is "Feedback Studio"?
• Does Feedback Studio alter any functionality?
• As a local Canvas Administrator, how do I configure the Turnitin LTI?
• Can my institution enable both the API version and the LTI version as we transition to the LTI?
• What happens to API enabled assignments when the API version gets shut off?
• Do teachers and students have to sign up for an account at Turnitin.com?
• Does the LTI version of Turnitin have feature X?
• How does an instructor set up an assignment using the LTI tool?
• When creating an assignment, should I load Turnitin in a new tab?
• How do students submit to a Turnitin LTI assignment?
• How do students complete peer reviews?
• I want to set up an assignment sequence of rough draft, peer review, and final draft.
• How does the grading work?
• How do students receive their feedback?
• How can I tell if my students have viewed their feedback?
• Will Turnitin send a grade from Turnitin to the Canvas Gradebook?
• Can I use the Turnitin iPad app to grade?
• Where can I see the originality report for a paper?
• What happens when I copy a course in Canvas?
• How can I use Turnitin with an essay question on a Canvas Quiz to get an originality report?
• I want to check discussion posts for originality.
• I want to use the Turnitin LTI but need a Canvas rubric for grading / assessment
• Can Students submit to Turnitin LTI assignments from the Canvas mobile apps?
• Are there any complications with the Turnitin LTI tool?
• I have a question that is not answered here.
• I do not like something about the Turnitin LTI. Who should I make aware of my displeasure?

Introduction

Turnitin is well known for plagiarism and integrates with Canvas when an institution purchases a Trurnitin subscription. Many instructors rely on Turnitin.com services for plagiarism education, prevention, and detection. Turnitin is also a valuable tool for grading and peer reviews. Turnitin currently integrates with Canvas in two different ways, but Turnitin is phasing out the older method.

The oldest Turnitin integration with canvas is known as the API integration. Currently, Turnitin is phasing out this older integration, but still offers support to schools who are not having a good experience with the LTI.  

The newer method of using Turnitin is the LTI tool. Turnitin’s page for the LTI tool includes the official Admin, Instructor, and Student Guides

Tutorials from Instructure for using the Turnitin LTI can be found here: , How do I create a Turnitin assignment?, and How do I manage Turnitin assignments?

Canvas has also developed a more robust framework for plagiarism detection services: Spring Cleaning Is Coming: Plagiarism-Detection Improvements Headed Your Way! Turnitin has announced that they will be continuing the LTI plugin while also developing a new plugin using the framework canvas is developing. The target release for the new plugin is Fall 2017. This new plugin promises Turnitin assignment creation within Canvas's interface for those who wish to use Canvas for most operations but would like an originality report from Turnitin. Users who wish to grade in Turnitin or use Peermark will wish to use the LTI version. However, Turnitin says institutions will be able to run both the LTI and the new plugin simultaneously. 

What is "Feedback Studio"?

Feedback studio is the name for an interface overhaul for Turnitin that took place in mid 2016. You can see an interactive tour and demonstration of the interface (Note the ability to use bold, underline, italics and hotlinked text in Grademark comments).  The materials in this blog now refer to feedback Studio, but only Grademark and originality reports have been incorporated into Feedback Studio. Peermark and its interface has not changed at this time.

Does Feedback Studio alter any functionality?

Yes, but the changes only affect the grading functionality of Turnitin.  As of May 23, 2016, the ability to view the complete list of Grademark comments is missing. For students, the implementation of rubrics in Feedback Studio is clunky as I discuss in this video:

Thankfully, Turnitin is listening and refining Feedback Studio. As of early 2017, the ability to search for quick marks while grading has been restored.

As a local Canvas Administrator, how do I configure the Turnitin LTI?

There are multiple sets of instructions with varying levels of detail for local canvas Administrators on the Turnitin website. Here is the best set of instructions, and here is the current configuration of the Turnitin LTI at the account level for my school:

1. Name the configuration.

2. The consumer key is provided to your account by Turnitin.

3. The launch url is provided by Turnitin and is the same for all institutions. The launch url for Turnitin UK Users is https://submit.ac.uk/api/lti/1p0/assignment.

4. Completing the domain field with "turnitin.com" ("turnitin.uk.com" for UK users) enables Turnitin to launch from the Canvas speedgrader report icons.

5. Setting the privacy to public allows Canvas to share student names and emails with Turnitin.

6. Turnitin documentation states that the Custom Fields may be left blank. However, adding the code developed by canvas engineers adds several convenient features that sync information between canvas and Turnitin so that instructors do not need to enter information in both Canvas and Turnitin, including due dates, assignment id's, assignment titles, points possible, and availability dates. The graphic depicts all of the available codes.

Here is a short video demonstrating the syncing features added by the custom code.

Can my institution enable both the API version and the LTI version as we transition to the LTI?

Turnitin has offered varying answers on this question. The latest answer is yes. In an email sent to local Turnitin instructors on 4-11-2016, Turnitin states, "For those who are wondering, it is possible to run the legacy Canvas integration and Canvas LTI integration in parallel during the transition period."

What happens to API enabled assignments when the API version gets shut off?

In an email sent to local Turnitin instructors on 4-11-2016, Turnitin states, "When the previous Canvas integration becomes unavailable, classes and assignments originally created through the previous integration will remain accessible by logging into Turnitin directly. These older classes and assignments will not be visible in the LTI integration."  Although, I believe this access is limited to Turnitin administrators.

On the Canvas side, The API enabled assignments stay in Canvas and all Canvas functionality remains intact when the Turnitin API gets turned off. Submissions and grading in Canvas persists in Canvas once you turn off the API; only the link to Turnitin is lost, which means losing direct access to originality reports and any grading done in Turnitin. Although, with the API turned off and LTI turned on, you can currently see the icons and percent in the speedgrader for past assignments. If you try to click on the icon, you get this error message:

The text "Turnitin has been enabled for this assignment" persists in Canvas assignments when the API has been turned off but the LTI tool has not been turned on for that assignment even if the course is copied for a new term Of course, there is no way of knowing if this will change once Turnitin phases out the API altogether.

An instructor who wants to preserve grading in Turnitin from the API version for personal access, must save the grading as a .pdf one paper at a time before the API gets turned off. Originality reports can be saved one at a time, or reports can be reproduced by resubmitting the file to Turnitin and disregarding the first submission when interpreting the originality report.

When we turned on the LTI, I converted my existing assignments to use the LTI without issue.

Do teachers and students have to sign up for an account at Turnitin.com?

No one absolutely needs to create a separate Turnitin account. The tool uses the email address in the user's Canvas profile as an identifier, and log in from Canvas is seamless even for first time users. However, the instructor cannot use the Canvas test student for testing the LTI tool because the test student does not include a profile and email address. When I started using the LTI, I had a previous Turnitin account under the same email my Canvas profile uses, so the tool recognized me and put all submissions into my preexisting account.

If an instructor accessed Turnitin for the first time in the LTI and then later had a desire or need to access information in the web interface at Turnitin.com, the instructor can go through the forgotten password process at Turitin.com to set up a password and then can begin to use the webinterface. It is probably advisable for an instructor to have access to the Turnitin.com interface for using the iPad app, submitting for students at Turnitin.com, managing rubrics and saved grading comments, etc.

Does the LTI version of Turnitin have feature X?

Yes! All of the major Turnitin features are present in the LTI version, including originality reports and grading (with reusable comments, rubrics, etc.) through Feedback Studio, e-rater (automated comments), grade anything (PowerPoint Excel, etc.),  peer review (in Peermark), ios app, and cloud submit.

How does an instructor set up an assignment using the LTI tool?

Instructors add Turnitin as an external app to an assignment. This video demonstrates the process (assuming you have enabled the custom codes in your LTI configuration for Turnitin:

When creating an assignment, should I load Turnitin in a new tab?

I prefer to use a new tab, but there are pros and cons to both approaches. Probably the most important thing is to be consistent on your campus to avoid confusing students. Here is a video showing what each option looks like:

Update:  As of June 30, 2016, Instructors must no longer launch a Turnitin assignment to initiate the assignment in Turnitin. The Turnitin release notes state, "Students can now launch into an assignment and trigger its creation; this relieves instructors from being forced to have first interaction with the assignment before students are able to submit." However, the instructor must set an available from date and a due date in Canvas to allow students to initialize an assignment.

How do students submit to a Turnitin LTI assignment?

Go here for a .pdf tutorial on uploading a word processing file to a Turnitin assignment.

How do students complete peer reviews?

Here is a .pdf tutorial on using PeerMark.

I want to set up an assignment sequence of rough draft, peer review, and final draft.

You will need two assignments in Canvas / Turnitin. The first assignment will be for students to submit drafts and critique each other with Peermark. The second assignment will be for the submission of the final draft. This video tutorial demonstrates setting up an assignment and adding a Peer review component with Peermark. Note that only the grade on the paper in Grademark gets passed back to the canvas gradebook, so if you want to grade Peer reviews, you can add reviews into the paper grade (what I do), or you can set up an assignment with no submission and manually enter grades for the peer reviews:

How does the grading work?

An instructor can choose to grade using Turnitin's Grademark or Canvas's Speedgrader.

I do all of my grading in Turnitin's Grademark. I use the Quickmarks (saved comments I can reuse) with a rubric and enter the grade in Turnitin. The grade gets passed to the Gradebook in Canvas. It actually works quite a bit like the Canvas Speedgrader, and you can advance from student to student as well as quickly flip through all of a student's submissions for the term. I prefer Turnitin's Grademark because I can save and reuse remarks (with clickable url's!). Turnitin also can layer the originality report and Grademark, so the instructor can see the originality report while grading. Unlike the older API plugin, Quickmarks, rubrics, and PeerMark libraries persist across Canvas courses, so there is no need for importing or exporting Turnitin assets after the initial use.

As of the August 29, 2015 update, the student submits the paper to Turnitin, and Turnitin sends a copy of the paper to Canvas. The copy of the paper in Canvas may be graded in the Speedgrader, but if you wish to use a Canvas rubric, you must add the rubric to the assignment before configuring the assignment submission as an external tool.

How do students receive their feedback?

Here is a tutorial for receiving instructor feedback through Grademark. If the instructor chooses to grade in the Canvas speedgrader, then the process is the same as it is for any other Canvas assignment except that the student can also click on the Turnitin icon to view her originality report.

How can I tell if my students have viewed their feedback?

If you use Grademark for grading, you can access the Turnitin inbox through the link on your Canvas assignment:

In the image above of a Turnitin assignment inbox, the eye icon indicates a student who has viewed feedback. The dots are students who have not seen the feedback.

Will Turnitin send a grade from Turnitin to the Canvas Gradebook?

Yes! Grades entered in Turnitin automatically get posted to the Canvas grade book. However, this is a one way link. Grades posted in Canvas do not show up in Turnitin.  

Can I use the Turnitin iPad app to grade?

I use it all of the time! In fact, the iPad Turnitin app does something nothing else does right now: you can download papers to the iPad and grade them without an Internet connection, using a rubric and Quickmarks (saved and reusable comments). Then, when you hit wifi again, the papers sync back to Turnitin (and therefore to Canvas).

Where can I see the originality report for a paper?

Icons for the originality report show up in the Canvas speedgrader and gradebook.  The full report can be seen by clicking on the icon in the speedgrader or accessing the LTI tool from the Canvas assignment or through the Turnitin iPad app.

What happens when I copy a course in Canvas?

The assignment, settings, instructions, and dates persist in Canvas when an instructor copies a course for a new term.The LTI assignment must be visited (if you load TII inside of Canvas or the LTI tool must be launched (if you load in a new tab) to reestablish the assignment and settings on the Turnitin side. Now, a student can access the assignment from Canvas to initialize the assignment in Turnitin; However, the instructor must set an available from date and a due date in Canvas to allow students to initialize an assignment.

How can I use Turnitin with an essay question on a Canvas Quiz to get an originality report?

There are two options.

The first option is to use a file upload question in the quiz. This allows students to upload a file in response to the question, and the instructor can bulk download the files from the quiz as documented in How do I create a File Upload quiz question?.  Once the students' files are downloaded in a zip file, the instructor could upload the zip file to the Submitting via quick submit https://guides.turnitin.com/01_Manuals_and_Guides/Instructor/Instructor_User_Manual/37_Quick_Submit on Turnitin's website. This is one good reason for instructors to set up accounts through Turnitin's interface and enable the quick submit in their settings.

The second option is to use essay questions in the quiz. After the students complete the quiz, the instructor can generate an item analysis. Download the item analysis and open it. Next, locate the column with the essay responses you wish to scan, and it helps here if you can search for a key word to locate the column. I always include the word "essay" in my essay questions, which lets me locate the columns I need quickly. Next, copy the column and submit it to Turnitin via cut and paste with Submitting via quick submit 

Here is a video that demonstrates using quick submit:

I want to check discussion posts for originality.

A feature request for using Turnitin on Canvas discussions is under review: . In the meantime, you can navigate to a discussion, select the entire page (ctrl A on Windows; Command A on Mac). Next, use Submitting via quick submit  on Turnitin's website and paste in the text. Some text you may not want will be included like the discussion prompts and your discussion replies to students, but if you can live with that, you can batch scan the posts, and what you copy even includes each student's name, so you know who wrote each post:

I want to use the Turnitin LTI but need a Canvas rubric for grading / assessment

Create your assignment as a Canvas assignment without linking it to Turnitin. Save the assignment. Add your rubric to the assignment, and edit the assignment to enable Turnitin. I

Can Students submit to Turnitin LTI assignments from the Canvas mobile apps?

Not at this time. As per Canvas iOS app and External Apps(LTI), Turnitin needs to make its LTI tool fully compatible for a mobile environment. However, it is possible for students to submit essays by using the browser on their mobile device. Additionally, Turnitin's iPad app supports student use for submitting papers  and viewing feedback. For students to gain access to the iPad app, they should go through the password recovery process after accessing Turnitin at least once through the canvas integration.

Are there any complications with the Turnitin LTI tool?

There is some loss of Canvas functionality that may affect some instructors:

• Turnitin assignments will only accept one file per assignment.
• Using differentiated due dates as documented inHow do I assign an Assignment to an individual student or course section? breaks date syncing with Turnitin because Turnitin can only handle one set of dates per assignment. As a workaround, an instructor could set a date in Turnitin that corresponds with the last date in Canvas, allowing all groups to submit to the same assignment, but this only works if your school is not using the custom codes to automatically sync due dates with Turnitin.  Alternatively, an instructor could set up multiple assignments, releasing each assignment only to one subset of students.
• If an instructor wishes to alter a Canvas rubric on a Turnitin assignment, she must Turn off the LTI to alter the rubric and then reinstate the LTI when done editing the rubric. Warning: disabling the LTI after students have submitted will severe the connection between Canvas and the LTI; you should only do this if students have not submitted.
• It is not possible to use the Turnitin LTI (or any other external tool submission) with a Canvas group assignment; the option to assign to a group disappears as soon as "External Tool" is selected as the submission type.

I have a question that is not answered here.

You can comment on this blog, and I am happy to help, but I do not work for Instructure or Turnitin and have no inside information. I am an English Professor, and I use the Turnitin LTI tool in Canvas daily. 

I do not like something about the Turnitin LTI. Who should I make aware of my displeasure?

Most issues are going to be with Turnitin. File bug reports and give feedback at Turnitin - Support Wizard.  You can also contact your local Canvas admin to pass feedback to the Turnitin rep for your institution. I encourage you to do this. Let Turnitin know that Canvas users want and deserve their attention. Turnitin is a great product, but it is also an expensive one. Get the most for your money by getting your feedback to the right folks.

However, it is also true that Canvas and Turnitin are working together, and Instructure Employees have initiated discussions on the following known issues:

Turnitin + Canvas: submissions appearing on the wrong assignment

Turnitin + Canvas issue: "Resubmit to Turnitin" button occasionally results in submission getting st...

Turnitin + Canvas: Allow teachers to resubmit on behalf of students

Canvas + Turnitin: Retreive TII originality score again after due date has passed

Questions? If so, please don’t be shy!

Does Feedback Studio alter any functionality?

[tdelillo]

 @dhulsey ​ - I'm curious, does your Turnitin dashboard show a due time of 11:59 pm? I had a faculty member complaining that his assignments are set for 11:59 in Canvas, but when he goes to the settings in Turnitin it shows 11:00pm instead. I was able to confirm and replicate this. Turnitin would only show the same time as Canvas when the time was a 5-minute increment (11:50, 11:55). That said, an assignment set to be due at 11:59pm in Canvas, and showing to the instructor as being due at 11:00pm, seems to be showing to the STUDENT as being due at 11:59pm.

[dhulsey]

Oh, wow! You and your faculty member are right. It always used to sync exactly at 11:59 PM, but now I have 11:59 in Canvas and 23:00 (11:00 PM) in Turnitin. I would guess that this is a new bug, and for those who do not tell Turnitin to accept late assignments, this could cause some confusion.

Will you be filing a bug report with TII,  @tdelillo ​?

[lindalee]

We're seeing the same thing. This is potentially VERY problematic, as the time cannot be changed when set by a substitution variable. And the default settings for a Turnitin LTI assignment do not permit late submissions.

[jared_flaherty]

We are having an issue with the LTI as well.        The due dates are not transferring at all for us.    It is defaulting to the +7 day due date...  also, the points are not transferring either. 

[lindalee]

 @jared_flaherty ​, is Turnitin LTI set up to use the substitution variables for the assignment name, due date, and points?

[jared_flaherty]

  Substitution variables?   Is that the custom fields? 

custom_duedate=$Canvas.assignment.dueAt.iso8601

assignmentid=$Canvas.assignment.id

custom_submission_title=$Canvas.assignment.title

custom_maxpoints=$Canvas.assignment.pointsPossible

custom_startdate=$Canvas.assignment.unlockAt.iso8601

If so, yes.   I had the above inputted and I just went into the LTI settings and all of the stuff in the Custom Fields was missing.    So, i put it back in and now it works again... kinda.     I am experiencing the same issue now that is described recently with missing the minutes in the due dates.   

[lindalee]

If allowing late submissions isn't an option, it looks like the best way to approach this issue is to adjust the assignment due date associated with the submission variable (Everyone/Everyone Else) at 12:01 am the next day. Turnitin LTI will truncate that date to midnight.

Looking through the assignments that we've set up for the fall, it looks like not all times are truncated. Turnitin LTI will present 1:30 p.m. correctly, for instance.

[dhulsey]

I filed a bug report with TII last night. Hopefeully, I will hear back today or tomorrow. I encourage others to do the same.

[tdelillo]

It actually doesn't seem to be necessary to change the due date, because when I tested it, it would allow the student (even with late assignments disallowed) to submit up until the "correct" due date (the one set in Canvas). So even though the teacher sees 11:00pm as the due time, the student can submit up until 11:59pm.

It's still a bug in the interface, and certainly confusing for the teachers, but it doesn't seem to be cutting the students off.

[lindalee]

 @tdelillo ​ -- I'm surprised to hear that Turnitin still allows students to submit until the "correct" due date. My previous experience with Turnitin LTI leads me to expect that students would be able to access the Turnitin LTI assignment dashboard (due to access from Canvas), but that the upload icon would be grayed out and not accessible.

[dhulsey]

Hey, Linda. As far as I can tell, the bug is not a bug that affects the due time. Rather, the bug appears to be displaying the wrong time for the instructor even though the correct time is functioning and displaying for students. Still, that is confusing and should be fixed.

[dhulsey]

Turnitin support says,

"Instead of the date/ time values being sent for the due date,  Canvas is sending Turnitin a value of "$Canvas.assignment.dueAt.iso8601" . The same issue is occurring for the start date value that is being sent to Turnitin.
Because this issue is due to the values being sent to Turnitin from Canvas, I'm afraid I would need to steer you towards Canvas support to correct the behaviour of Canvas's LTI tool consumer."

My guess is that something in the custom fields was broken by either Turnitin or Canvas. Hopefully, someone will figure out how to fix it.

[mmarvin]

Please read the initial post. I don't think that I should need to enroll

myself as a teacher for over 300 courses to make sure the dates are

correct. Please adjust so that the admin's screen appears as the teacher's

screen.

Maggie Marvin

Course Developer

Champlain College CPS

802-651-5890

Canvas Help Center 877-399-9103

On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 10:33 AM, crafte@easternflorida.edu <

[dhulsey]

Hi, Maggie. I did read all of your posts and understand them, but I can't do anything besides refer you to the feature request process for Canvas and Turnitin or offer the workaround of using the Turnitin.com website to monitor Turnitin settings for individual assignments in courses.

Again, I am an English Professor. I do not work for Instructure or Turnitin. Perhaps someone from Instructure, such as  @Renee_Carney , Deactivated user​, or  @scottdennis ​ can help point you in the right direction to make a feature request.

I hope you have a nice day!

[Renee_Carney]

 @mmarvin ​

As always, Dallas has gone above and beyond to help support our Community!  He did some great research here and has directed you in the right direction.  I do not see this as a feature request, as it sounds like the dates are not working as expected.  Please submit this as a support issue by clicking the help button in Canvas and selecting 'report a problem'.  Thanks.

[amanda_taintor]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question (send me packing if not). But I'm having a really weird experience with the new turnitin LTI. Some students can submit with absolutely no problem while others are being prompted to enter their email and password. For one particular student I masqueraded as her (I have admin rights) and did not experience the Login screen. BUT I know the student isn't fibbing because she sent me a screenshot.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[gncrum]

Hi Amanda:

We have seen this issue with Turnitin and Canvas and the Safari Browser on Macs. Here is the link from the Turnitin website. http://turnitin.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/Knowledge_Article/Integrations-You-have-been-logged-out...

Thanks!

Greg

[gncrum]

Hello:

I am updating our Turnitin documentation for our faculty and wanted to create a best practices document or even a quicksheet for instructors and/or students. The vast majority of our instructors here will just interact with the Originality report  and just need it to transfer properly and reliably  from Turnitin to the Speedgrader in a timely manner both on initial student submission and resubmits. Does anyone know of a resource like this or has anyone started working on such a resource?

In might include things like: 

What is the best browser to use?

Is it better have Turnitin open in a separate window or within the frame window?

Will Turnitin work reliably when students resubmit assignment drafts, or is is just better to create a different assignment for the final draft of the assignment?

During my journey with Turnitin the last 6 months plus, when asked these questions, I have given different answers based on the current state of the  Canvas/Turnitin LTI ,my experience and anecdotal knowledge. I am definitely researching The Turnitin support resources, but I thought I would reach out to this community as well for general ideas and answers to those 3 specific questions as well.

Thanks!

Greg

[dhulsey]

Hey, Greg!

What is the best browser to use?

This can change. Generally, Firefox is the most stable browser for most uses, but I use Chrome most often, and it works fine with Turnitin currently. If you scroll up a bit, you can see that there is a known issue with TII and Safari on a Mac.

Is it better to have Turnitin open in a separate window or within the frame window?

It seems to work okay either way. There is a video in the blog that compares / contrasts the two, but the important thing is to be consistent on campus to help students keep their lives simple. We have TII open in a new tab on my campus because we use other LTI tools that work best in new tabs and the consistency works well for us.

Will Turnitin work reliably when students resubmit assignment drafts, or is is just better to create a different assignment for the final draft of the assignment?

I use separate assignments for draft assignments. On rough drafts, I do go into the optional settings and tell Turnitin not to add the papers to the database because this prevents false positives when the students submit again for the final draft. Using a single assignment for draft work may not be desirable because resubmitting to the same TII assignment deletes the previous submission to that TII assignment, and there is a a substantial delay in the generation of originality reports when resubmitting to the same assignment.

For other questions, the blog post answers many common questions, and the comments on the blog are extensive and contain many good ideas from users about TII with Canvas.

[lindalee]

Hi  @gncrum ​,

To add to  @dhulsey ​'s recommendations --

1. We've found that Chrome and Firefox work reliably, while using Safari on a Mac can produce the known log in error. As has been mentioned previously, allowing cookies can fix this problem (though we often recommend that students switch to Chrome as a workaround). This issue is addressed in our internal Turnitin documentation for instructors and students.
2. We recommend opening Turnitin LTI in a new window. This provides more room on a device with a small screen, and this can make it much easier for students to locate the Accept Submission - Save button. On a device with a small screen, it can be necessary to collapse the course menu to easily locate this, and loading in a new window prevents.
3. Regarding resubmissions, it depends on the pedagogical reason for the resubmission. If they are multiple drafts of the same assignment (draft 1, draft 2, final draft), it might be preferable to set these up as separate assignments (with or without storing in the database, depending on the instructor's expectations). If it's to allow students to resubmit in cases where they've submitted the incorrect file, or made additional changes, etc., we recommend allowing for resubmissions. There have been problems with seeing the originality report results in Canvas, but Instructure and Turnitin have been working on improving this problem.

We've put together guidelines for both faculty and students, with our recommendations for best practices, which you can see here:

• An article about using Turnitin for plagiarism detection on the Wharton Computing Teaching Support site
• A Turnitin Instructor Guide​ (posted to the Canvas at Penn blog)
• A Turnitin Student Guide​ (posted to the Canvas at Penn blog)

At Wharton, we place PDFs of the Turnitin Instructor and Student guides in the files section of the courses we support using Turnitin. And the known issue with Safari is addressed in the troubleshooting section of those guides.

I hope this helps!

Best,

Linda

[gncrum]

Thanks as always Dallas!

Greg

[gncrum]

Thank you Linda:

This is very helpful. It is good to see how other schools handle Turnitin.

Greg

[DaleDrees]

Hi Linda,

Thanks for the links  @lindalee  to the Instructor and Student guide at Penn! They look great!

Dale

[amanda_taintor]

I can't thank you enough for listing these resources!

[DaleDrees]

I am struggling a little on why a student with the Turnitin LTI will have to navigate from the Grades tab to view feedback for that assignment. We have faculty who put From and Until dates on assignments and if a student goes to the assignment after the Until date they can no longer see the Turnitin feedback because the assignment is closed (I hope I am overlooking something).

Another issue that I am having and hopefully it is something that I am overlooking. When I setup an assignment with Turnitin LTI and then go in as an instructor and leave comments in the Speedgrader using the Crocodoc. Now when I go in as a real student I can not see the Crocodoc comments with a Turnitin LTI assignment. I tried twice today but got the same results with no Crocodoc comments appearing?

Dale

[dhulsey]

It is true that feedback in TII will not be available to students if the instructor locks the assignment with an until date. This is not just true of Turnitin though; this is an effect of how Canvas external tool assignments work. SoftChalk, Perusall, or any external tool will have the same issue with until dates. However, assignment submission can be controlled by telling Turnitin not to accept late assignments; that way, late submissions would not be accepted but students could still access originality reports and TII feedback.

On the Crocodoc, someone else will have to weigh in; I have never used it, but I was under the impression that it worked. Instructure even has a guide on it: How do I grade Turnitin assignments in SpeedGrader?​ Of course, that does not mean that a bug has not developed at some point . . .

[sethgurell]

I am wondering if there should be a TurnItIn group on this site to discuss these issues. As this thread nears 500 replies, it may be easier to sort through and clearly there is demand. Just a thought.

[sethgurell]

In replying to myself, it does look like TurnItIn as a vendor has a space: Alliance Partner - Turnitin

[kschneider25]

FYI - there is a CanvasLive session today about 3rd party tools - Partnerships &amp; Platform Office Hours

[dhulsey]

I tried sharing the blog to the Turnitin space, so that it would exist there -- as a start on moving things to the Turnitin space, but Jive did not like that idea. Perhaps that is why people are not discussing there: Unlike other areas of the community, I can't share content to that area, so perhaps there are different rules in place for the partner spaces?

[snugent]

I recommend to our faculty not to use the Available Until date with TurnItIn assignments for this very reason. The TurnItIn settings can control submission cutoff with the due date and in TurnItIn instructors can set a date for when students can see feedback. There are some inconsistencies with what instructors and students see on the grades and assignment details page with TurnItIn assignments.  Below is the bulk of latest comments I added to the ticket I created in Canvas support a few weeks ago. I also created a ticket with TurnItIn but haven't really heard anything from them other than acknowledgement of the ticket.

• Issues with Grade Sync on TurnItin Assignment Dashboard - Assignments graded in Speedgrader will not display the grade on TurnItIn assignment dashboard but the grade is recorded in the Canvas gradebook. This is confusing for instructors because they may think they forgot to grade an assignment when viewing the TurnItIn assignment dashboard. I know this worked before the big TurnItIn update because I remember testing for this. Please make it work again.
• Similarity Index Visibility in Canvas Grades - Assignments graded in Feedback studio will not display the similarity index score in Canvas grades in the assignment cell for the student. This is inconsistent for the instructor because the ungraded assignments and assignments graded in SpeedGrader will display the similarity index score which links back to Feedback studio.  This is very helpful to instructors and the inconsistency seems buggy.
• Similarity Index Visibility in Canvas Assignment Details page - Assignments graded in Feedback studio will not display the similarity index score on the Canvas assignment details page but similarity index score will display on the Canvas assignment details page for ungraded assignments and assignments graded in SpeedGrader. This is inconsistent for students since this the page they will see when viewing grades. Students should always be able to view the similarity index score regardless of how the instructor decides to grade the assignment.  The assignment details page has its own issues with regular online submission in a Canvas so some consistency here would be very helpful.

[DaleDrees]

Thanks snugent​! I was wondering if you have noticed any problems with Students seeing Crocodoc comments in Speedgrader with a LTI Turnitin assignment? I can go in as a professor to leave comments using Crocodoc and using Turnitin but when I go in as a student I do not see the paper, let alone the Crocodoc comments. Really hoping it works for everyone else and it is just me!

[snugent]

The one I graded in SpeedGrader had annotations and I could see them as the student.

[tdelillo]

I just tested this, and it worked for me. The student has to click the "view feedback" link in the Submission Details page (via Grades), but the Crocodoc markings were there...

[DaleDrees]

Thank you  @tdelillo ​ for testing this and getting back to me. I went back in this afternoon and created a new assignment and everything worked as advertised.

The two previous assignments still don't show anything and the crocodoc area just shows No Preview Available but I am going to delete those and pretend they were never there!!!!

[chriscas]

Are Administrators in Canvas able to access turnitin LTI assignments without being added as an instructor of the course (for faculty technical support)?  It seems with our config, all I get when trying to take support calls is an error about roles, until I add myself as an instructor.  I'm hoping there's something I missed in the setup, because we have a pretty strict policy about adding people to courses (even for admins).  Other LTIs work fine without being added as an Instructor, so this seems like a bad restriction if it's working as intended.

[MattHanes]

chriscas​ We handle these support issues by logging on as the teacher using the Masquerade feature of Canvas.

[chriscas]

Hi  @MattHanes ,

Thanks for the suggestion.  We do occasionally masquerade too, but we also like to avoid that as much as possible, since it can also affect page view logs and have accidental changes look like they were made by the instructor (I know Instructure can sometimes identify masquerading on the back-end, but it's hard from the UI log views).  Ideally Turnitin would recognize an admin role, but are you saying you at least see the same behavior as I am right now?  If I could at least confirm it works like this for everyone else, it would be helpful!

-Chris

[kschneider25]

Christopher, 

We try to do most of our masquerading withing beta/test instead of production so that the page view logs are left intact.  But sometimes you just have to.   Unfortunately, integrations are live regardless of where you access them (at least in our case).

Kori

[MattHanes]

chriscas​,

I can confirm that it works that way. We have a couple of lti integrations that work the same way. The LTI integrations that require authentication of some kind (tied to usernames) build the "rosters" based on who is a member of the course and wouldn't recognize an admin role.

[lindalee]

Hi chriscas​: You need to be a member of the teaching team to access the Turnitin LTI assignment dashboard. Unfortunately, at this time Turnitin does not recognize an Admin role. Trying to access the Turnitin LTI assignment dashboard as an Admin results in the general "could not process this request" error message.

Like  @MattHanes ​, we either use masquerade to do this or add ourselves as teaching team members. For classes where I know I'll be doing a lot of support throughout the semester, I'll add myself as a TA to facilitate providing that support.

[dhulsey]

Hi, Christopher! Linda Lee speaks the truth in her post. If the solutions she outlines do not work for you,  I suggest heading over to Turnitin's site and filing a feature request on their Road Map site.

[jeneen_hill]

 @dhulsey ​- I have read that you prefer to grade your assignments that students have handed in the Turnitin/Feedback studio. How do you organize your rubrics when you do this?  Do you create them first in a separate platform, and upload to both Turnitin and Canvas?  Or just upload to TiI?

How do students see the comments on their papers when you give feedback in Feedback studio? 

Do they have to log in to TiI?

Thanks in advance for your answers, I appreciate the help.

[dhulsey]

Hey,  @jeneen_hill ​! My personal rubric process is to create the rubric in a table in Microsoft Word. This allows me to map out and revise the rubric. It also allows me to have the rubric in a format that can be easily shared with students as a .pdf file.  From there, I transfer, by hand, the rubric to where ever I need to use it (Canvas or Turnitin depending on the purpose for that particular rubric). Sadly, there is no universal rubric format that can be created and imported into multiple learning tools, but I hope there will be a kind of .rtf file for rubrics one day that many learning tools can use.

It is worth nothing that both Canvas and Turnitin allow for copying, exporting, and importing rubrics among colleagues.

As for the integration with canvas and Turnitin , sign on to TII from Canvas is seamless. here are some tutorials I use with my students:

Go here for a tutorial on uploading your word processing file to the assignment: https://www.nmjc.edu/userfiles/dhulsey/LTI/SubmitTurnitinLTI.pdf

To access your originality report and feedback, please follow the instructions in this tutorial: https://www.nmjc.edu/userfiles/dhulsey/LTI/ltiversionNMJCCanvasTurnitinFeedbackStudentTutorial.pdf​

I hope that helps, and if I can be of further assistance, please let me know!

[dhulsey]

Hey everybody! Heads up: The API version of Turnitin turns into a Pumpkin on NeWwYears Eve.

From Canvas Production Release Notes (2016-11-19):​

Turnitin API Deprecation: December 31

On December 31, Turnitin will discontinue the Canvas API integration and will only support the LTI integration. If you are a Canvas admin whose institution is using Turnitin and have not yet enabled the Turnitin LTI for your account, please contact your Turnitin account representative for your external app credentials. The Turnitin LTI can be configured for your account as shown in the External App URL lesson. For additional questions, please see the Turnitin Canvas integration page or contact your Canvas Customer Success Manager.

[RobDitto]

Thanks, chriscas​, for submitting an idea to Turnitin's UserVoice on behalf of Canvas admins:

https://turnitin.uservoice.com/forums/219534-welcome-to-turnitin-s-uservoice/suggestions/17112457-al...

[chriscas]

Does anyone know if there's a custom variable available in the LTI setup to also populate the turnitin feedback available date (we'd just set it to the same as the due date)?

We have the LTI setup to sync the available_from and due dates from Canvas to turnitin, and we're not running into issues with the feedback available date on the turnitin side.  It appears when turnitin initiates the assignment, it sets the feedback available date to the due date (not a big problem, yet).  When an instructor decides to make the assignment available and due later in the term than originally planned, and new new available_from date is later than the original due date, the LTI just throws up a big error screen.  In my testing, it's also going to be an issue for course imports if faculty don't change the dates during the import process.

I've filed a Canvas ticked at the request of our CSM (Instructure already replied it's not their problem) and also filed a ticket with turnitin, but haven't heard a word back form them.  The last ticket I filed with turnitin about course title length being an issue resulted in turnitin saying Instructure makes the LTI and they should fix the problem (which is NOT true according to everyone else I talked to).  This LTI has not been a good experience for us at all, but I'm glad there's a lot of people here who are willing to discuss the issues and share possible solutions with the community!

P.S.  Sorry if this was already asked...  With all of the comment pages here, doing a search is next to impossible (unless there's a search within the thread that I'm missing).

[dhulsey]

Hi, Christopher! I can report that copying a Canvas course works okay, but I do have Canvas adjust dates when I import, as you say, so I cannot report whether other methods work or not.

Also, to the best of my knowledge there is not a separate variable available for feedback release. Although, it would be nice if whomever wrote the custom codes would develop a library for people to choose from.

For now, when an instructor makes changes, what happens if she deletes the available from date altogether when making the changes? Try this: delete the available from date in Canvas. Access the Turnitin assignment. Go back into Canvas, add a new start date -- maybe that would work.

Another work around for now would be to copy assignment instructions, delete existing assignment, and create a  new assignment.

All of those workarounds seem tedious though, so hopefully TII and Canvas will talk to each other, but, yeah, the opening move is always to say it is the other guy's fault, and then they start talking to each other.

[chriscas]

Hi Dallas,

So we did have a workaround for the dates issue, which is:

1. Change only the due date (and available until date, if needed) in Canvas
2. Go to the turnitin settings and change the feedback date
3. Change the available from date in Canvas

This is really to complicated to have all of our faculty do, without causing a lot of grief and aggravation (there's already enough of that with this LTI change).  Luckily, just trying to hack around (since Turnitin support hasn't gotten back to me at all yet...), I found a better solution for us!  I added the following line to the custom variables section of the Turnitin LTI config:

• custom_feedbackreleasedate=$Canvas.assignment.dueAt.iso8601

This populated the release date to be the same as the Canvas due date (erfect for us, since it'll keep the date in the right range if it's changed in Canvas, and we advise our faculty to use SpeedGrader instead of Grademark anyways to keep feedback areas consistent for students).  I figured I would share this here in case anyone else runs into the issue and wants to use the same approach I did to prevent the problem.  The only downside is that any feedback given in grademark won't be seen by students until the due date (and faculty won't be able to individually adjust it).  It could also be set to the available from or available until date, depending on what an individual school might prefer.

[dhulsey]

That is awesome, Christopher! Thanks for posting your solution here.