Canvas - How to Submit Application Materials to Turnitin

Staff reviewing admissions applications can use Turnitin in a Canvas course to analyze application documents.

Prepare Your Document for Turnitin Analysis

Before submitting an application to Turnitin, please copy and paste the portions like you’d like to analyze into a Word document. Usually this means copying and pasting any written statements. Save this new document to your computer.

Alternatively, most PDF viewers can quickly convert a PDF to a Word document. For example, Adobe Acrobat can Export PDF files as Microsoft Word documents.

This step is important because:

Turnitin is not compatible with PDFs. You’ll need to use a Word .DOC, .RTF, or .TXT file.
Turnitin will analyze all text in any submitted file. This process is quicker and more reliable if you remove any unnecessary text that is likely to match across applications, like form entry text.

Submit Your Document for Turnitin Review

Visit Your “Application Review” Canvas Course

The UW-Superior Canvas team created a Canvas course you can use to submit application materials to Turnitin:

Canvas: International Admissions Application Review Course

If you need access to this course, please email Mark MacLean and canvas@uwsuper.edu.

If you’d like a similar Canvas course for reviewing a different type of document, please fill out this online form.

Screenshot of the Canvas course created for checking documents for similarity using Turnitin — This course was created by the UWS Canvas team to submit application materials to Turnitin.

Submit Your Document to the Canvas Assignment

To submit a document review, first open the International Admissions Application Review Canvas course, and then open the necessary Plagiarism Review assignment:

On the course homepage, look for the Application Review module.
Click the necessary Plagiarism Review assignment. (If you need to keep submissions organized by project, we'll create a different assignment for each.)
Click the yellow Start Assignment button.
In the “File Upload” tab, click the Choose File button.
Select the document created earlier.
In the “Comments” field, enter the applicant’s name, and any other comments you’d like to include for record keeping.
Agree to the End-User License Agreement by selecting the checkbox.
Click the yellow Submit Assignment button.

Screenshot showing choose file button referenced in step four and submit assignment button referenced in step eight. — Click "Choose File" to upload your document. Click "Submit Assignment" to finish submitting a document for review.

Turnitin will begin analyzing each submission immediately but the analysis will take at least a few minutes. Plan to submit for analysis in advance of needing the results.

You can view Turnitin analysis results for a submission once SpeedGrader shows a percentage icon for that submission.

View Turninitin Analysis

To view Turnitin analysis results, open the Plagiarism Review assignment where you submitted the document for analysis. Next, click SpeedGrader. This link will be on the right side of a wide browser window or at the bottom of a narrow window. This will open a new tab.

Once in SpeedGrader, you can cycle between users enrolled in the course and view submissions from whomever submitted the document. You can cycle between users in the course by clicking the left and right arrows at the top-right of the SpeedGrader window. (You can also click the name of the current user to view a list of all users in the course and select the one you need.)

Screenshot shows instructor selecting Michael Test from the list of students in SpeedGrader. There are left and right arrows to move between students. — Cycle between students by clicking the arrows to see each submissions Similarity Score flag.

Screenshot of the similarity flag score for Michael Test. The Similarity Score flag at the bottom beneath Submitted Files displays the percentage of similarity. — Cycle between students by clicking the arrows to see each submissions Similarity Score flag.

On each submission you should see a Similarity Score flag (which includes a percentage) below “Submitted Files.” The color of the similarity score flag is based on the amount of matching text Turnitin detected in the document.

To view detailed Turnitin analysis about the submission—what Turnitin calls the Similarity Report—click the Similarity Score flag. This will open the Turnitin Feedback Studio in a new tab, showing the submission, annotations, and a toolbar on the right side of your browser window.