Library Guides: Library Services for Faculty: Turnitin Support

What is Turnitin?

Turnitin is an online text matching tool that scans student's work against existing sources for improper citations or potential plagiarism. You can turn this option on in your course's graded assignments to control and uncover plagiarism in your course.

How to add Turnitin to your course in MyCanvas

To add plagiarism review to an assignment using Turnitin:

Navigate to the assignment in MyCanvas where you wish to turn on the plagiarism review option.
Click "Edit" to make changes.

On creation of a new assignment, the option for plagiarism review is not shown; to trigger this, click on the dropdown menu beside 'Submission Type' and make sure the option 'Online' is selected.

Select "File Uploads" as one of the options for online submissions.

Once an option is selected, the Plagiarism Review option will appear below Submission Attempts.

To select Turnitin, click on the dropdown menu beside Plagiarism Review and select Turnitin.

Once Turnitin has been selected, you will be presented with configuration options for Turnitin. There is further explanation of these options in the Turnitin documentation.

After you have configured the settings, click Save at the bottom of the assignment editor to make changes permanent.

Try Turnitin for yourself

If you would like to see what Turnitin looks like for students, you can try it out in the Library@MyCanvas course for students:

Navigate to the Library@MyCanvas course for students and self-enrol
Click Assignments from the left menu
Click Turnitin Check Before Submitting Your Assignment from within the Assignments Folder
Follow the instructions to upload a test paper
A similarity report will be generated but it will not be stored in the Turnitin standard paper repository for future comparison, and is generated for your own personal review and use

Similarity Reports

The Similarity Report indicates where students have copied information without paraphrasing or citing. Turnitin indicates where content in the submitted paper matches content in the Turnitin repository which is made up of billions of webpages, prior student submissions, and documents from periodicals, journals and other publications. It does not indicate plagiarism and must be accompanied by your own review process to determine if academic misconduct has occurred.

A colour scheme indicates level of match (e.g., red indicates 75-100% matching text). Students may ask what percentage of matching is allowed. There is no college policy on this and it is up to faculty to determine what is acceptable.

See Understanding the similarity score for more information.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will the Similarity Report indicate a match on direct quotations from sources, even if the student has properly cited the source?

Quoted sources can be excluded from the Similarity Report. When you add Plagiarism Review to your assignment in MyCanvas you can check the "Exclude quoted materials" checkbox. More information is available at the Turnitin website.

Will the Similarity Report indicate if the student has copied from a generative AI tool?

A separate AI Writing Report is available. Note that AI detection may not always be accurate. See more information about AI detection in Turnitin and the Turnitin AI Detection Frequently Asked Questions. Students cannot see the AI detection report in their view.

What percentage of a match in the Similarity Report is acceptable?

There isn't a college policy on the acceptable percentage of a match. Faculty may decide what is most appropriate for their particular circumstances/courses.