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Seamless Grading and Future Flexibility: Document Processing For Third Party Integrations

What’s Changing?

As part of our commitment to implementing the latest LTI 1.3 standards from 1EdTech, we are introducing the new Document Processor for 3rd party integrations powered by the LTI 1.3 Asset Processor specification. This feature allows third-party tools to asynchronously process documents submitted through Canvas. Currently this feature has been adopted by Turnitin and Packback. Because this has been written in a standardized way, we are encouraging more apps to support this feature for additional use cases such as transcription, translation, and accessibility services.

Here's how it works for instructors and students:

An instructor sets up a document processor on any assignment using Text Entry or Document Upload.
The learner submits their work to Canvas as normal.
The attached tool processes the document in the background and returns a report to Canvas.
This report is visible to the instructor in SpeedGrader, and (if enabled) to the learner via the Assignment Details page and Grades page.

Speedgrader with a Turnitin Document processor report for Similarity and AI

Turnitin, which includes support for similarity detection and AI detection for those with the appropriate licenses
Packback Sendback allows institutions with a Packback enterprise agreement to add Packback’s Originality Fingerprint (Uniqueness and AI Risk indicators) to Canvas assignments.

We hope to see more tools follow, potentially offering solutions such as translation services, captioning of media, and other innovative solutions.

Why This Matters

This work is all about simplifying workflows and modernizing your Canvas experience:

Seamless Reporting: The tool processes the document and returns a report that is shown directly in SpeedGrader, where instructors are already grading.
A Modern, Reliable Platform: By adopting the latest 1EdTech standards, we are ensuring a more robust and future-proof integration method for our partners.
Future Flexibility: This new workflow is designed to support a variety of third-party functions, opening the door for more innovative tools beyond traditional plagiarism detection.

What to Expect at Launch

Disabled by Default: This feature can be opted into as of the February release by turning on the Document Processor feature flag at either the account or course level.

Guidance for Current Turnitin Users:

This feature is only available with the use of the LTI 1.3 version of Turnitin.
Current Turnitin LTI 1.3 or LTI 1.3 and 1.1 combination users: You may start using this feature as soon as you enable the optional feature flag– allowing instructors to continue using Turnitin tools the same way they have been, or leverage this new workflow.
LTI 1.1 only users: You will need to upgrade to the LTI 1.3 tool to take advantage of this new feature. You are welcome to do this at any time.
Canvas Plagiarism Framework (CPF) users: We recommend you wait on switching to LTI 1.3 to adopt Document Processor. We are currently developing a migration tool to ensure previous assignments created with CPF continue to work after LTI 1.3 is installed. If you want to test the new functionality in beta, we recommend setting up a separate subaccount within your Turnitin integration for testing.
We have sent out information to all customers we were able to identify about which scenario applies to them and how we recommend they proceed. Please contact your CSM if you are unsure which of these paths makes the most sense for your institution.

Guidance for current Packback users:

Packback Sendback requires use of LTI 1.3.
Instructors using the Packback platform for their assignments should continue to use Packback’s regular LTI external tool integrations.
Current customers who are identified as a good fit for expanding their usage with Packback Sendback will be contacted by their Account Manager. Please reach out to your Account Manager about this feature if you would like to learn more.

For more information please see the release notes and FAQ.

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Comments

jb2483929

Is there a timeline for this to be available in Discussions and New Quiz Essay questions? (I assume this change is part of that plan.)

AlexisNast

The Discussions work is part of this plan! We don't have a timeline on it yet as we're still doing testing to ensure that it will meet user needs. We do not have support for New Quiz Essay questions planned yet, though I'll make a note of this request.

StephanieNg

Will the new workflow allow TII LTI 1.3 to support Group Assignments?

According to TII's comparison chart it does not
https://guides.turnitin.com/hc/en-us/articles/18406386583309-Feedback-Studio-with-Canvas-comparison-chart

Would appreciate your confirmation and advise.

Thanks

AlexisNast

Assignments using Document Processor can be group assignments. Due to a limitation on the Canvas side, we still do not support groups for assignments using the submission method of External Tool with any tool.

maja_skibinska

Is there any reporting which will output in bulk students, submission info, similarity and AI scores per each assessment? Or is there any other way to output similarity, AI scores in bulk (via API?).

AlexisNast

This is possible to do through via the API with GraphQL. Could you share more about the need here so I can understand why users may need this feature in the UX?

wtbetsy

canvas_plagiarism-framework_document-processor_settings-vs-speedgrader.png

The new workflow for adding an assignment using Turnitin LTI 1.3 has been tested. However, the following issues have been found.

While creating an assignment,

(1) The [ Add Document Processing App ] button was still shown after adding a Document Processing App. Then multiple apps could be added without any warning message.

(2) The "Plagiarism Review" (Canvas Plagiarism Framework) could also be included in the same assignment, even if "Document Processing App(s) had been added.

However, students could submit their files to only one area in the assignment.

In the SpeedGrader for a submitted file, one of the Document Processor Apps (another one had no report) and the Canvas Plagiarism Framework method could generate reports with different similarity scores.

When creating/editing an assignment, after selecting a method or adding a document processing app, no other method or document processing app should be added.

AlexisNast

Thanks for the feedback!
1. Being able to add multiple document processing apps is part of the LTI 1.3 specification. Some tools will require this if you want multiple report types from the same tool. Turnitin is not one using that workflow, but we currently don't have a way to know which tools require/support adding multiple document processors and which don't. I'll talk with Turnitin about if there are any ways we could solve for this moving forward.
2. It is not intended to have both CPF and Document Processor enabled in the same account. We specifically advise that schools using CPF hold off on enabling this tool for users until we have our migration solution in place, which will allow you to update previous assignments to use the new feature and disable CPF. This will avoid the issue of being able to turn on both in the same assignment.

I can't speak to why the reports have different scores as those are generated by Turnitin, but I will bring this to their attention.

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