Canvas Assignment with the Similarity plagiarism checker

It is recommended to use the method described on this page to add a plagiarism check to an assignment.

If you are looking for more information about Similarity, please go to VU Tools for Education in Canvas.

Creating a Canvas Assignment with the Similarity (Turnitin) plagiarism checker

Note that Similarity has replaced Ouriginal.  

  • Creating a Canvas Assignment with Ouriginal plagiarism checker is almost the same as described in the previous page, but it requires setting the Submission Type to Online and choosing File Upload.
  • The Plagiarism Review option will then appear:

    file upload canvas - urkund.png
  • If you want to ensure that students are submitting file in which Turnitin can generate a similarity report, choose to Restrict Upload File Types to readable text files such as pdf, doc, docx, pptx, etc.

 

  • Set Plagiarism Review to Similarity. You will then see the following option:

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Explanation of Similarity options

You can find a full overview on the webpage of Similarity. Links to an external site.

  • Customize the following Turnitin plagiarism settings:
    • Exclude from Similarity Reports: Exclude text appearing in the bibliography, quotes or both from being checked for matches when generating Similarity Reports. You can override this setting in individual Similarity Reports.
    • Submission indexing: When a submission is indexed by Turnitin, it is made available for comparison in future Similarity Reports. Who can match against a paper is based on your Turnitin license. On assignment creation, you can decide if papers submitted to your course will be indexed in this way or if you would just like them to receive a similarity report.
    • Generate Similarity Reports: Choose a Similarity Report generation option that best suits your needs:
      • Immediately: A Similarity Report will be generated at the time of submission
      • Immediately and on due date: A Similarity Report will be generated at the time of submission and on the assignment's due date. We recommend this option as it allows for a collusion check within your class.

 

 

  • (Optional) In the Assign to area, select the Assign to box to reveal a dropdown menu.

Canvas_CPF_AssignTo.png

  • (Optional) Select the course you would like to assign the assignment to. This ensures that your assignment will only be available to students in this particular course.
  • Amend the assignment's dates.
  • Select Save & Publish to publish this assignment. Select Save to save the assignment.

As Canvas may not immediately notify Turnitin that an assignment has been created, we advise waiting 90 seconds between creating the assignment and making the first submission. This will allow Canvas to notify us that the assignment has been created.

If you continue to encounter an issue with the Similarity Report failing to generate, you can select Resubmit to Turnitin from SpeedGrader, which forces the Similarity Report to generate.