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Turnitin

Turnitin is software used to identify text in a submitted paper that matches text in other sources and to provide feedback on student papers. Turnitin can be used directly within Canvas.

What is Turnitin?

Turnitin gives you the ability to generate similarity reports, which indicate the percentage of matching text in a student paper compared to online journals, periodicals, websites, and the Turnitin repository. The tool highlights matching text so faculty and students are able to see which portions of text match other sources.

Turnitin is a learning tool. In an effort to promote academic integrity and provide students with a clear visual of the amount of text that may directly match other sources in their written work, Turnitin assignments may be useful. If you choose to enable students to view their similarity reports and re-submit before the due date, they can identify areas in which they neglected to properly paraphrase or summarize before the final draft is submitted.

You might also be interested in utilizing Turnitin’s feedback tools. You can provide inline comments, use embedded rubrics, and add voice notes in Turnitin assignments. Turnitin also offers peer graded assignment and revision assignment options.

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  • Access Turnitin within the Canvas LMS by selecting it in the assignment settings under Plagiarism Review. Similarity Reports are accessed within Speedgrader by clicking the percentage button beside the file students submit.
    • Note: in the new Speedgrader UI, the Similarity Reports can be found under the Details tab.

Questions?

Getting Started with Turnitin

  • If you have not used Turnitin before as an instructor or you are using Turnitin in Canvas for the first time, please contact the Teaching and Learning Centre before getting started. Please also review the resources below.

  • It is useful to discuss the various settings that can be applied within Turnitin assignments and to understand how those settings may affect the originality reports that are produced. Please visit Turnitin's System Requirements page for more information on supported browsers and other technical requirements. Students should avoid using Safari 12 when submitting Turnitin assignments.

  • You can begin to use Turnitin directly within your Canvas courses. By creating an assignment in Canvas you can either use the External Tool option or select the Plagiarism Review drop-down menu to create an assignment that will generate Turnitin Similarity Reports for submitted papers. A key difference between these two options is that the Plagiarism Review option (also called Plagiarism Framework) will integrate with SpeedGrader in the Canvas Gradebook, whereas the External Tool option provides access to Turnitin’s feedback tools through the Gradebook. Turnitin assignments created within Canvas will be linked to the Gradebook. Once students submit their work through a Turnitin Assignment in your course, you and any other graders in the course can access submitted attempts through the Gradebook.

Course Statement

  • Updated guidelines on the use of Turnitin are available. Please review them carefully before implementing Turnitin in your courses.

  • The use of Turnitin is not mandatory. If you choose to use it in your course, it should be noted on your course outline. As of August 2025, the updated statement that should be included is:

    • Ontario Tech University and faculty members reserve the right to use electronic means to detect and help prevent plagiarism. Students agree that by taking this course all assignments are subject to submission for textual similarity review by Turnitin.com. Assignments submitted to Turnitin.com will be included as source documents in Turnitin.com's restricted access database for the purpose of detecting plagiarism in such documents and to generate purely statistical data from such content for product development and improvement. The instructor may require students to submit their assignments electronically to Turnitin.com or the instructor may submit questionable text on behalf of a student. The terms that apply to Ontario Tech University’s use of the Turnitin.com service are described in the Turnitin Services Privacy Policy and Turnitin End-User License Agreement available on the Turnitin website.

    • Students who do not wish to have their work submitted to Turnitin.com must provide their instructor a signed Turnitin.com Assignment Cover sheet when submitting an assignment.

Important Facts

  • Instructors can no longer upload assignment submissions on behalf of students who aren't enrolled in the class. This workflow was previously available to instructors using Turnitin via turnitin.com and turnitinuk.com, or those not using a Learning Management System (LMS). The decision to remove this option was made to streamline user account and license management. Moving forward, all submissions must be associated with an enrolled student.
  • Instructors will be prompted to agree to Turnitin’s End User License Agreement (EULA) before creating their assignment, the University has reviewed and approved the terms and conditions for use.
  • Please ensure students are advised that a Turnitin Similarity Report will be generated before activating it on an assignment in Canvas. Students will also be prompted to agree to Turnitin’s End User License Agreement (EULA) before submitting their assignment. This notification can be included in the assignment description or on your course syllabus.
  • To request that a paper is deleted from the Turnitin repository, the course instructor must submit a Deletion Request and then contact the Teaching and Learning Centre.

Instructor Resources for Teaching with Turnitin

Student Resources for Learning with Turnitin

Depending on how the assignment has been created by the instructor, there are different ways for students to submit a Turnitin assignment in Canvas: