Turnitin

Turnitin is a complete Web-based solution for managing writing intensive assignments. Turnitin now has two options in Canvas for plagiarism detection: Turnitin External Tool Integration and Plagiarism Review. Can't decide which integration is most suitable for your needs? The Turnitin Canvas integration matrix can help you make an informed decision!

Faculty at the University of North Texas can use Turnitin to help prevent plagiarism. Students submit papers to Turnitin and the tool compares the submissions against other sources on the Internet, the Turnitin database, and other commercial databases. Turnitin does not decide if a paper has been plagiarized but instead provides the faculty member with a report of how much text is similar to other sources. The faculty member ultimately decides if a paper has been plagiarized. In your syllabus, inform students that you are using the Turnitin tool to help prevent plagiarism.

Our license agreement with Turnitin allows it to be used exclusively in classes offered as part of UNT’s curriculum and exclusively for the purpose of submitting student work for evaluation. iParadigms, Turnitin’s parent company, offers a product called iThenticate for scholars to check their work for duplication and attribution. UNT has recently purchased a license for iThenticate for graduate students enrolled in thesis/dissertation and writing intensive courses. You can access iThenticate  by logging in to the single sign on page. For login issues, please email ithenticate@unt.edu and Grad.Workshops@unt.edu for all other questions.

Turnitin External Tool Integration

The Turnitin External Tool integration should be used when you would like to not only generate orginality reports, but would also like to use the full suite of Turnitin Feedback and grading tools such as QuickMarks, Rubrics, and PeerMark. To create a Turnitin assignment:

  1. Navigate to your course.
  2. From the Course Navigation Bar, click Assignments.
  3. Click on the +Assignment button at the top right of the Assignments page.
  4. Enter your basic assignment details.
  5. In the Submission Type, select "External Tool" from the drop-down menu.
  6. Click the gray Find button.
  7. Scroll until you find "Turnitin LTI" and select it.
  8. Click the green Select button.
  9. Click Save & Publish at the bottom of the screen.

Turnitin Plagiarism Review

The Plagiarism Framework should be used when you would like to generate originality reports but would also like to use Canvas assignment features such as group assignments, multiple due dates, and the Speedgrader. To create a Canvas assignment with the Plagiarism Review enabled:

  1. Navigate to your course.
  2. From the Course Navigation Bar, click Assignments.
  3. Click on the +Assignment button at the top right of the Assignments page.
  4. Enter your basic assignment details.
  5. Change the submission type to Online using the drop-down menu.
  6. Select the File Uploads checkbox under Online entry options.
  7. Choose Turnitin from the Plagiarism Review drop-down menu.
  8. Enter the assignment dates (these dates will transfer into the Turnitin assignment).
  9. Click Save & Publish.

Turnitin and the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)

FERPA regulations prohibit institutions from releasing personally identifiable information from a student’s educational records to third parties without the written consent of the student. Such personally identifiable information includes the student's name and identification number or any other information that alone or in combination is linkable to the student's identity by that third party. Because it is possible that student assignments may contain such personally identifiable information, it is important that faculty members understand when a student's written consent is necessary and how to obtain such consent to ensure compliance with the law.

Students Submit Papers

Instructors are not required to get consent from students to have them submit their own papers to Turnitin if they post a notice in the course syllabus informing students that they are required to submit written assignments to Turnitin prior to submission. Please review TurnItIn's privacy policy on their site.
*Sample notice: Students are required to submit written assignments for this class to Turnitin, a web-based plagiarism detection service. Before submitting your paper to Turnitin, please remove your title page and other personal information. (OPTIONAL: Any paper that is not submitted to Turnitin will not be accepted by the instructor and will not be graded.)

Accessibility

Turnitin's accessibility program aims to incorporate accessibility into the entire product development lifecycle to ensure that its website and applications are accessible and usable. Turnitin Accessibility

Get Help with Turnitin in Canvas

If you are a faculty member at UNT, and you are using Turnitin through Canvas, contact the Faculty Helpdesk for assistance with this tool:
Email: lms@unt.edu
Phone: 940-369-7394

Get Help with the Turnitin Website

Additional guides for using the External Tool and the Plagiarism Review can be found on the Turnitin website.

Supported Technologies