Workaround for Turnitin Assignments for group submissions

Owned by ccev2968
Last updated: 16 Oct 2023 by CIT Webmaster
2 min read

Turnitin external tool do not have group submissions capability.

Hence if the teacher used Turnitin assignment and needs to do group submission assignments, the existing Turnitin assignments will not workaround anymore if it requires group submissions.  The workaround steps below will allow the teacher to use the existing Turnitin assignment with additional steps.

  1. Set up the Turnitin assignment (as normal). Select option not to count the assignment towards final grade. Instruct only the group leader/representative to upload the file (similar to how group assignments were handled in LumiNUS).

  2. Set up a no submission group assignment.  This will be the placeholder for your grades to import later on.  Hence, please emphasize to the students that no action required for this no submission group assignment.

  3. Export class roster with groups. Use the export as a reference only for you to identify which students are grouped together.  If you are aiming to have 1 grade for each group, then use this list as reference so to know whether all groups have submitted and represented.

  4. Export Current Gradebook on Canvas. For ease, you can filter your gradebook just to show the No Submissions assignment that you’ve created then export the gradebook.
    • If you are aiming to have 1 grade for each group, then enter mark only on the downloaded csv for the one submitting the assignment (one entry for each group).  Note:  No need to remove any of the columns from the downloaded csv.  You just need to enter the marks accordingly.

  5. Reuse the exported csv with the marks you have entered for each group on the file then import it back.  You do not need to remove or modify the read only columns.  You will need to have the same columns on the file before and after entering the marks in the file.

  6. After importing the file successfully, check whether all the students have marks automatically, even if you have only entered marks for 1 of the students per group.  Expected result will be having grades for all students - same grades for all students on the same group.


As Turnitin will not prevent students from doing submissions, Teacher will need to instruct and strictly implement to the students that only the student leader to submit file.  Otherwise, it will be challenging to track which submission will be graded for each of the group.