Turnitin: How to Create an Assignment with Plagiarism Checker and View the Results (Instructors)

Please note: beginning Spring 2025 quarter the Artificial Intelligence (AI) writing detection tool will be disabled in the UC San Diego Extended Studies instance of Turnitin. The Turnitin plagiarism checker tool is still fully enabled and available to use on your assignments.

UC San Diego Division of Extended Studies has integrated the plagiarism checker tool Turnitin into our Canvas system. To use the tool you will need to set up a Turnitin-enabled Assignment using the directions below.

For Turnitin to run the plagiarism checker tool, the document must meet the below requirements:

• File size must be less than 100 MB
• File must be a minimum of 300 words and be written in long-form English prose (i.e. paragraphs, essay-length texts)
• File must be less than 800 pages
• File must be written in English
• Accepted file types: .docx, .pdf, .txt, .rtf

Creating an Assignment with Turnitin Protections

1. To add a new assignment that will automatically be scanned by Turnitin, go to Modules and click on the + icon next to the Module title where the assignment should be added.
   
   • Make sure "Assignment" is listed in the "Add" field and highlight "Create Assignment" below. Provide a name in the "Assignment Name" field and click "Add Item".
2. Navigate to the Assignment and Click "Edit" in the upper right corner. In the "Edit" view scroll down to Submission Type. Under Submission Type, Select Online, and select Text Entry, File Upload or both. Once you make this selection a new field will appear called Plagiarism Review.
3. In the Plagiarism Review area drop-down and select Turnitin DES and set Show reports to students to Immediately if you wish for students to be able to review their results.
4. An expanded menu will appear allowing you to customize the Turnitin settings. For information on the Turnitin settings please reference the following help article: Turnitin Scan Settings and Optimization (Instructors).

Viewing Turnitin Results

Once students have submitted work to the Turnitin-protected assignment, you can use SpeedGrader to access the similarity report.

1. Open SpeedGrader on your Turnitin-protected assignment.
2. In SpeedGrader, you will see a colorful icon with a percentage called a similarity score badge. You must click the percentage badge to view the report because the percentage on the badge does not provide enough information for you to make any decisions on whether the content was plagiarized.
3. After clicking the badge, you will see the report. There are two tabs on the top of the interface, one for Similarity (i.e. potentially plagiarized content), and one for Flags (inconsistencies that would set it apart from a normal submission). Click each tab to investigate the submission contents.
   • Similarity
   • Flags
4. To interpret the results of your report, please read the following articles:
   • How to interpret the Turnitin Similarity Report (Instructors) 
   • Overview of the new Similarity Report experience
   • Navigating the new, enhanced Similarity Report
   • Managing exclusions and filters in the new, enhanced Similarity Report
   • Integrity flags in the new, enhanced Similarity Report

NOTE: If you would like to run one-off reports, please contact Instructor Excellence at ext-instructorexcellence@ucsd.edu for more information.

For more information on Turnitin, please visit our Turnitin Resources Central Hub and the Turnitin Guides website.