We have had Turnitin integration in Canvas in a while and we have heard of a few issues which I would like to address in the following question and answer format.
If you are a new user of Turnitin, please check this post for instructions on how to deploy the tool in your course.
Question: My students were told that they have to create accounts in Turnitin. Why did that happen? Shouldn’t Canvas have taken care of that?
Answer: Account creation requires first-time users to agree to Turnitin terms and conditions. Students will need to agree to allow their accounts to be created. If they have chosen not to agree, they might want to clear their cache and try again, or use another browser or computer to perform this one-time action.
Question: My students were not able to submit their assignments due to error messages about assignment title and dates. What might be the issue?
Answer: You will need go to Turnitin settings and give the assignment a title, a start date, due date and feedback release date that should be consistent with the assignment dates you assigned in Canvas assignment settings.
Question: A student claims that his or her assignment has been submitted but I could not see it. Why?
Answer: The top reason is that the student may not have followed through in the submission process. One last step is to click on a button to accept the submission. If a student does not do this, his or her assignment will not go through. If an assignment has gone through, a student should see a confirmation message on the screen. There really isn’t a middle ground between a successful submission and an unsuccessful submission. You can ask the student to resubmit and make sure the button for confirmation is clicked.
Another possible reason is that you might have switched in your submission method from “online” to “external tools” in the middle of students submitting their assignments. If that’s the case, submissions turned in earlier can be accessed through the Speedgrader instead of the Turnitin inbox.
Question: Can I use the Canvas Speedgrader and Turnitin only for originality check?
Canvas has now made it possible for Turnitin assignments to be pushed to Speedgrader as well, so yes, it is possible to use the Speedgrader for grades and comments.