Digital Assessment: Canvas and Turnitin

The table below outlines the various functionalities in Turnitin and Canvas assignments. 

The type of assignment you choose will determine which marking tool you will use.

Recommendations

Our recommendation is to use Canvas Assignment for a better student experience, unless markers require QuickMark comment libraries for marking as these are only available in Turnitin. Where possible, we recommend that you agree at School-level what assignment type will be used for which requirements.  

It is crucial to always mark in the correct tool for the assignment type: one of the most common issues seen is assignments marked in the wrong tool, which causes problems for the assessment workflow, and creates inconsistency for students trying to find their feedback.

Please find a list of resources available below for Canvas assignments marked with Speedgrader.

Canvas Orientation Course

• Set up a Canvas assignment
• Online marking and gradebook

Training

• Online Marking and Feedback (Canvas) Webinar

LTDS Guide

• Delegated Marking using Sections
• Importing Sections for Large Cohorts

Turnitin Site

• Using Turnitin used as a similarity checker in a Canvas Assignment

Canvas/Instructure Site

• Creating non-submission assignments - Feedback can be provided via Canvas using Speedgrader where there is no submission required or there is a paper submission.

Please find a list of resources available below for Turnitin assignments marked with Turnitin tools.

Canvas Orientation Course

• Set up a Turnitin assignment in Canvas

Screencast

• Turnitin Online Marking Tools 
• Turnitin Quickmarks 

Turnitin Site

• Turnitin Guides – Turnitin used as an External Tool
• Turnitin Guides – Turnitin used as a similarity checker in a Canvas Assignment - Please note Turnitin has recently released an AI detection tool. At present this has not been enabled for Newcastle University.

LTDS Guide

• Delegated Marking - Turnitin potential work around options

Rubrics are a really useful tool to add to an assignment. It provides the students with a clear outline of what is expected of them and when their submission has been graded using a rubric, they can see what they have achieved and what they need to do to attain the next level.

For guidance on writing a rubric please see our Writing Assessment Criteria and Rubrics page.

To add a rubric to your assignments, please see the Canvas guide and the Turnitin guide.

Managing grades and releasing feedback outlines workflows for Canvas/Speedgrader and Turnitin marked assignments. 

When notifying your students that their marks and feedback are available, we would recommend sharing the URL link to the assignment in your communications. This will take students directly to their assignment so that they can access their feedback quickly and efficiently. You could also share the student guide to Accessing your Assignment Feedback via Canvas for more information.

NESS Information and Guidance provides information on how to transfer grades from the Gradebook to NESS, as well as NESS Training Videos provided by the Student Progress Service. 

It is possible to switch off anonymous marking temporarily in the Canvas Assignment settings to use the Gradebook to verify which students have or have not submitted to an assignment. This may be for record keeping or to contact students who have not submitted.

The anonymous marking setting in the Turnitin Assignment settings cannot be changed. Revealing individual student names in the Turnitin inbox cannot be reversed. 

To temporarily switch off Anonymous Marking for an Assignment,  it must be done in the Canvas Assignment Settings and then follow the Canvas Guidance for applying Anonymous marking to an Assignment to;  

1. Un-tick ‘Graders cannot view student names’ in the Canvas Assignment Settings.
2. Complete the required action (e.g. send a message to students who have not yet submitted from the Gradebook).  
3. Tick ‘Graders cannot view student names’ in the Canvas Assignment Settings to reapply Anonymous marking. 

When using Canvas as your assessment submission portal, it’s important to consider the file types students are allowed to submit. To ensure you can view submissions in Canvas SpeedGrader, make sure the files are compatible with Canvas DocViewer and can be checked for similarity by Turnitin.

The table below indicates which file submission types can be viewed in Canvas DocViewer and which files can be checked for similarity by Turnitin:

File Size Considerations

Although Canvas accepts files up to 5GB, Turnitin can only process files that are under 100MB and fewer than 800 pages. Therefore, submissions requiring a similarity report must meet these size and page limits

There is also a minimum submission size for Turnitin to process the document which is 20 words.

Larger files also will take longer to load in the DocViewer, files over 30MB will need to be downloaded to view.

Image Type Considerations

The following image files are supported by Canvas DocViewer and will be rendered:

• .bmp
• .png
• .tiff
• .jpeg
• .svg
• .jpg
• .tif

Other Considerations

• HTML within text files (.txt) cannot be previewed or annotated in DocViewer and must be downloaded to view the content.
• Audio and video embedded in PowerPoint files (.ppt/.pptx) cannot be previewed in DocViewer and require downloading.
• If using OpenDocument files (.ods/.odt), these can not be previewed in the Canvas Teacher and Canvas Student apps.
• Apple iWork files (.pages, .numbers, and .key) cannot be previewed in DocViewer and would need to be downloaded onto a machine that supports these formats.
• SpeedGrader may take up to ten minutes after an assignment is submitted to display a document, so please account for this when marking immediately after a submission.
• Image scans of text will not be processed by Turnitin unless the text is able to be highlighted/selected in the document.

• Each assignment submission is marked by one marker. 
• The moderator checks all or a sample of the marked submissions. 
• This can be achieved using a standard Canvas or Turnitin Assignment. 
• The moderator needs Teacher access to the Canvas course. They can access all of the marked submissions and view all of the marker’s comments. If required they can change a student’s grade in Canvas SpeedGrader or the Turnitin Assignment Inbox. 
• Any change to the grade will be recorded in the Gradebook history. Note that there isn’t a download option for the Gradebook history. 
• If the moderator needs to record any notes this can be done by adding a Notes column in the Gradebook. Notes are included if you download data from the Gradebook.

• Each submission is marked by two or more markers. 
• The moderator decides the final grade for every submission. 
• This can be achieved using a Canvas Assignment with the Moderate tool, details can be found on the Double marking with Canvas Wayfinder 
• Double blind marking  is possible using the ‘Graders cannot view student names’ setting. 
• The moderator needs Teacher access to the Canvas course, and needs to be selected as ‘Grader that determines final grade’ in the assignment settings. 
• Once they have decided the final grades the moderator releases them to the Gradebook. 
• The record of the markers’ grades and the final grade can be viewed by the moderator, or by any member of staff with Sub-Account Admin access to the course. 
• If the moderator needs to record any notes this can be done by adding a Notes column in the Gradebook. Notes are included if you download data from the Gradebook. 
• The full workflow for double marked assignments is explained in the Double Marking with Canvas Assignments Wayfinder.