Canvas plagiarism checker integration.
Add Noplag inside SpeedGrader via Canvas's external-app catalog. LTI 1.3 standard, auto-roster, sub-account scoping. Apache 2.0 engine — your institutional IT can audit detection logic before approving (a Canvas-adoption blocker for proprietary checkers). Free for educators.
Three steps from External Apps catalog to graded submission.
Admin installs at sub-account level once. Instructors enable per course via the rich-content editor. Students submit normally — the integration is invisible to them.
Install at sub-account
From Canvas Admin → Settings → Apps, paste the Noplag JSON config URL or use the Marketplace listing. Sub-account scoping means you can install for the College of Arts & Sciences without enabling for Engineering. LTI 1.3 client credentials provisioned automatically; no manual key/secret rotation.
Enable per course
In Course Settings → Apps, toggle Noplag on. Set the per-assignment threshold (default: flag headlines > 15%; AI-likelihood thresholds arrive with AI detection, coming soon). The integration appears as a SpeedGrader sidebar tab. No student-facing UI changes.
Submit as usual
Students submit through the normal Assignment workflow. No new accounts, no separate login, no extra clicks. The check runs server-side; results appear in SpeedGrader the moment you open it. Grade passback to the Canvas Gradebook on instructor save.
Six things the integration does.
Integration depth matters for FERPA + institutional IT review. We list the API surface explicitly so your CIO doesn't have to guess what we're doing with Canvas roster data.
LTI 1.3 standard
Public spec. Your IT can read what we send + receive. No proprietary Canvas extensions; the integration works against the IMS Global LTI 1.3 reference implementation. Tested against Canvas Production + Beta release tracks.
SpeedGrader inline
Reports appear in a sidebar tab inside SpeedGrader — the grading view teachers already use for every Canvas assignment. No new tab, no popup, no context switch. Per-interval classification clickable.
Grade passback (AGS)
LTI Advantage Assignments + Grade Services. The plagiarism % posts back to the Canvas Gradebook on instructor save (AI-likelihood passback rolls out with AI detection, coming soon). Configurable: as a column, as feedback comment, or both.
Per-assignment threshold
Different assignments deserve different thresholds — research papers strict (5%), reflective journals loose (25%). Instructor sets per-assignment in the integration's Settings tab. Default sensible for class essays (15% / 0.7 AI).
Auto-roster via NRPS
LTI Advantage Names & Role Provisioning Services. Course roster pulls automatically from Canvas; we don't ask you to sync students manually. Role-aware: Teacher / TA / Designer / Observer / Student all respected per Canvas role mapping.
Sub-account scoping
Install per sub-account (College of Education, College of Arts & Sciences) rather than the root account. Useful for large institutions where different departments have different plagiarism-checker preferences. No org-wide rollout required.
What the integration looks like to an instructor.
Same SpeedGrader you grade in already. Noplag appears as a sidebar tab; per-paragraph classification clickable to source; threshold-flagged intervals highlighted directly in the submission text.
Why the modernist novel matters
MARIA GONZÁLEZ · ESSAY 3 · 1,632 WORDS · SUBMITTED MAR 14 11:42 PMIn Anna Karenina, Tolstoy writes that “happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” (Tolstoy 5). This opening line is often cited as the moment the modernist novel first announces its psychological method.
The modernist project, however, did not fully take shape until early-twentieth-century writers self-consciously rejected the omniscient narrator in favor of consciousness rendered moment-by-moment as it flows through perception.
UNCITED PARAPHRASE · Eysteinsson (1990), p.96 · click to view sourceVirginia Woolf put it directly: “life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo.” That sentence, written in 1925, is doing the work the previous century's narrators had refused.
What's different about Noplag vs the Turnitin LTI you've already been quoted.
What your CIO needs before approving the integration.
Canvas integrations get reviewed by Information Security and the Office of General Counsel before deployment — typically a 4–8 week process at large institutions. We give your reviewers what they need: a completed security questionnaire and a data-flow diagram showing exactly what crosses the boundary. FERPA-compliant DPA: Noplag as a school official under Canvas's existing institutional FERPA agreement; student PII is only the LTI-passed identifier (Canvas user GUID), not name + email. GDPR-compliant DPA for European institutions: data-processor designation, sub-processor list, EU residency endpoint (Frankfurt). We're a relaunching open-core company — formal attestations like SOC 2 are on our roadmap, not yet in hand, and we don't claim otherwise. What we offer instead is stronger for a review: the Apache 2.0 engine means your IT reads the detection logic and data flow line-by-line rather than accepting our claims on trust. Most institutions find that faster than the equivalent closed-source review, which stalls on the “we'd need to see the algorithm” requests that an open-source engine answers up front.
Read the institutional-review packetWhat Canvas admins and instructors actually ask.
- How long does a real Canvas install take?
- Admin sub-account install: ~5 minutes (External Apps → paste config URL → confirm). Per-course enable by instructor: ~30 seconds. The 4-8 week part is the IT + General Counsel review BEFORE that admin install — security questionnaire, the DPA, and the data-flow review. We hand over what the review needs, and because the engine is Apache 2.0 the algorithm-secrecy steps that stall closed-source vendors simply don't apply.
- Does it run inside Canvas, or just link out?
- Inside. LTI 1.3 launch with deep linking; the Noplag report renders in a SpeedGrader sidebar tab. No new window, no separate login, no context switch. The integration honors Canvas's role mapping (Teacher / TA / Designer / Observer / Student) automatically via NRPS — observers see read-only, students see nothing.
- Does it post the score back to the Canvas Gradebook?
- Yes — LTI Advantage Assignments & Grade Services (AGS). The plagiarism % posts back to the Canvas Gradebook on instructor save (AI-likelihood passback follows when AI detection ships — coming soon). Configurable as a column, a feedback comment, or both. Instructor can override the auto-passed value before saving.
- What does FERPA compliance actually mean here?
- Noplag operates as a school official under Canvas's existing institutional FERPA agreement. The only student PII that crosses is the LTI-passed identifier (Canvas user GUID), not name + email. We don't have a student roster; we have anonymous identifiers tied to Canvas's roster. Right-to-erasure: a student account deletion triggers fingerprint deletion within 24 hours.
- Will this work with our SSO (Shibboleth / SAML / Okta)?
- Yes — the LTI 1.3 launch happens after Canvas authenticates the user with your SSO. We don't see SSO credentials; we receive a signed LTI launch token from Canvas. Your existing SSO posture passes through unchanged. No separate Noplag login for students or instructors.
- What about students who don't want their work checked?
- Per-assignment opt-out is configurable: the instructor decides whether the integration runs for an assignment. Some institutions configure it as opt-in per assignment (research-paper assignments check, reflective journals don't). Aligns with the AAUP / NCTE guidance on plagiarism-checker use in academic-freedom-respecting institutions.
- Can our IT actually audit the detection engine?
- Yes — github.com/NoplagLabs/noplag-engine, Apache 2.0. The shipping detection pipeline (winnowing fingerprints, alignment, report assembly) is readable line by line, and MinHash LSH, vector reranking, and Binoculars AI detection join it as they ship. Your IT can verify what's being checked, against what corpus, with what thresholds. Most IT reviewers find this faster than equivalent VSAQ-only reviews of closed-source tools.
- Does it work with Canvas Mobile / mobile submissions?
- Yes — server-side check runs regardless of submission origin (web, iOS app, Android app). The SpeedGrader sidebar tab works in Canvas Mobile's SpeedGrader app on iPad. The instructor experience is identical.
- Pricing for an entire institution?
- Educator individual: free on the Pro waiver (annual application, no card). Institutional: Enterprise SLA contracts, typically $0–$15K/year depending on FTE and rollout scope. Significantly less than equivalent Turnitin contracts (typically $30K-$200K depending on FTE) because we're an open-core company, not a 25-year-incumbent vendor.
- What if we already use Turnitin and want to migrate?
- Common scenario. The two integrations can run in parallel during a transition period (Canvas allows multiple LTI plagiarism tools per assignment). Most institutions test Noplag on one college's courses for a semester, compare report quality + AI-detection accuracy + cost, then either consolidate or keep both for different course types. Migration playbook available on request.
Install in Canvas. Free for educators.
5-minute admin install. Sub-account scoping. SpeedGrader inline. Free for educators on the Pro waiver — annual application, no card. Enterprise SLA contracts for full institutional rollouts.