Turnitin is the plagiarism and AI detection software that is available to all UIS instructors. This solution is directly integrated into Canvas.
As part of our Turnitin license, we have access to four integrations:
- Turnitin Standard Assignments
- Turnitin Clarity Assignments
- Turnitin Multipart Assignments
- Turnitin plagiarism detection in Harmonize discussions
Turnitin Standard Assignments
Turnitin integrates with Canvas assignments that are submitted online through text entry or file uploads. With this particular assignment type, the instructor will have access to the Similarity Report (plagiarism and citation information), the AI Writing Report (potential AI-generated writing information), and Integrity Flags (character and text manipulation information.
For more information on Turnitin Standard Assignments, you can watch the workshop recording from COLRS staff below:
Turnitin Clarity Assignments
Turnitin Clarity Assignments allow for greater transparency between instructors and students on how a submission was created. These assignments require that students use an assigned writing space to compose their work, and instructors are able to play back the student's writing process. Instructors can also choose to configure an AI chatbot that can guide students through their work, or instructors can turn off the chatbot altogether. When using this assignment type, you still have access to the Similarity and AI Writing Reports, as with Standard Assignments.
Clarity Assignments resources
Turnitin integration with Harmonize discussions
Turnitin's plagiarism detection can be used within Harmonize discussions. It's important to note that the Turnitin functionality within Harmonize does not include possible generative AI detection. Additionally, the plagiarism detection integrated into Harmonize is not as robust as the full plagiarism detector with Standard and Clarity Assignments.
Turnitin and Harmonize resources
Additional considerations
When using Turnitin (or any plagiarism and AI detection tool), it is important to keep in mind that these reports should be used as a starting point for a conversation, not as 100% proof one way or another. We encourage instructors to trust their own judgment when evaluating student work; you know your content and your students better than anyone!
Some instructors may choose to create a dummy assignment in a Sandbox course to check individual student work when they suspect plagiarism or AI-generated writing. If you choose to go that route, we ask that you consider the following:
- Student work is student intellectual property. If you scan student work on a one-off basis, we highly encourage you to disable the option to send their work to the Turnitin repository or to include a syllabus statement informing students that this is something you may do.
- Because of the way the detectors work, each student submission you want to check should be in its own document. For example, if Student 1 uses generative AI to compose their work, Student 2 does not use generative AI, and Student 3 uses generative AI, you are likely to get a false positive on Student 2's work because it is sandwiched between AI-generated text. The only way to ensure each student response is assessed as fairly as possible is if each response is in its own document before being uploaded to an assignment.
Many of the insights that a Turnitin report will provide are created using AI. These insights could be valuable, but it is important to verify any output from AI, even when it comes from Turnitin.