Turnitin is an external tool that helps educators evaluate the authenticity and quality of submitted papers. Essentially its main function is to return a percentage value for the content in a paper that is used from an outside resource. In order to utilize Turnit in:

1. Create a new Assignment in your course Assignment area.

2. Add a name, due date, and point value as you normally would for any assignment.

3. In the Assignment type window you will want to select file upload or text entry. You may select both options. In addition you want to select Enable Turnitin Submissions.

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4. When a student uploads a Word document, or enters text directly into the assignment submission area it will be verified with the Turnitin service. You can see how this work by going into Student View yourself and uploading a text file to test it.

5. It can take a few minutes for Turnitin to analyze a student’s submission. The image below shows a completed analysis by Turnitin. According to Turnitin the submission contains 97% of its content directly for other sources. Notice that it also shows the url for the sources in the right hand column.

6. If you are submitting a test assignment from your own student view then you will want to give Turnitin 30 minutes to process the paper. It is analyzing the submission against millions of other resources and this may take some time to complete. Also, Turnitin stresses that it is not searching for plagiarism. It is just showing how much information is used from outside resources. Depending on how the student has cited their sources and quoted the original material, a high percentage may still be acceptable for submission.

7. A Youtube tutorial that I found useful for integrating Turnitin with Canvas: