In the 20+ years of their existence, no other year has seen such an upsurge in implementing Learning Management Systems as 2020.
Just last summer, analysts were concerned by the LMS market stagnation, reporting it had reached a plateau. On top of that, its four leaders had proudly set their flags: Moodle, D2L, Blackboard Learn, and Canvas - the latter with the largest footprint of all.
In 2020, adapting to distance learning – a new pandemic necessity – has been quite challenging for both students and educators. At the same time, the rise of academic misconduct is becoming a side effect LMSs must be equipped to deal with. Does Canvas have a plagiarism checker to assist teachers and maintain academic integrity in this turbulent time? Like many other platforms, Canvas LMS is reliant on external solutions to provide teachers with tools for identifying plagiarism.
Factors to consider when choosing plagiarism detection tools for Canvas LMS
Academic institutions must account for numerous criteria when choosing the right plagiarism detection service. Aside from the financial investment, teachers must also spend hours learning the nuts and bolts of the new tool. Once they’re confident in their skills, introducing new features won’t cause an uprising. Simply keeping the product dependable will be the key to their hearts.
So it only seems logical that a versatile plagiarism checker for Canvas LMS would need to be:
- Reliable
- Simple to use
- Cutting-edge
If you are curious how Unicheck checks all the boxes, continue reading.
User-friendly interface and practical features of a plagiarism detection tool
- Unicheck offers compatibility with all versions of Canvas LMS. There are two methods for integrating Unicheck with Canvas - LTI and Plagiarism Framework Integration (which is more popular among Canvas users). Once activated, Unicheck’s functionality will blend seamlessly into the familiar Canvas workflow. Canvas native integration helps flatten the learning curve, as instructors won’t need to adapt to completely new scenarios.
- Unicheck provides a high degree of automation and full onboarding support, which saves time for teachers and system administrators. Migrating data from other anti-plagiarism solutions, as well as producing and delivering reports, require minimum.
- Unicheck’s clean and functional interface allows teachers to view and assess submissions quickly and efficiently by highlighting matches, quotes and references. The report layout is informative and easy to comprehend. This plagiarism checker for Canvas LMS strives to deliver only up-to-date and accurate results, making sure no links are broken or obsolete in the report.
Reliability as a distinctive feature of a plagiarism checker for Canvas
Over 100,000 educators in 69 countries use Unicheck. These institutions serve more than 1,5 million students. Whether a teacher or a student, everyone who uses Unicheck as the plagiarism checker in Canvas LMS, deserves uninterrupted access to the service and its features. Unicheck goes out of its ways to ensure this is possible.
- Since the move to Amazon cloud in June 2019, Unicheck has been able to guarantee 99,95% uptime to its customers. Thanks to the Amazon Web Services’ auto-scalable architecture, this plagiarism checker maintains the same short response time even during peak loads throughout the academic year. On average, it only takes 25 seconds per page to check the submission against the system’s extensive online database: web pages indexed by search engines, open source repositories and educational databases.
- Other essential benefits of Amazon hosting include local data storage, increased security, and compliance with personal data protection regulations like GDPR, FERPA and COPPA.
- A transparent pricing model means that no hidden fees are incurred, and all Canvas LMS users are eligible to receive the latest updates at no additional cost.
- Unicheck’s clients can count on tech support via chat, email, or phone - 7 days a week, all year round. Starting from the implementation phase, users receive comprehensive help from a personal manager assigned to corporate accounts.
- Educators have three weeks to experience the full range of Unicheck’s features before deciding to sign a license agreement. Academic institutions can enjoy up to 6 months of trial use.
Continuous innovation of a plagiarism checker in Canvas LMS
Following its mission of detecting and preventing plagiarism, Unicheck often introduces new features and updates existing ones to better serve the academic community's needs and keep the leading positions among plagiarism detection tools for Canvas LMS.
- Unicheck supports students’ dedication to original work by implementing a self-check option that identifies plagiarism issues before the final submission. Educators can enable this option in their account and define the number of precheck attempts.
- The Citation and Reference Detection Algorithm – developed by Unicheck – provides instructors with the tools to exclude proper references and quotes from the similarity report.
- The Side-by-Side Comparison mode allows teachers to use Unicheck as a plagiarism checker for Canvas LMS that views the submitted work next to the web document it matches, revealing any plagiarized text.
- Introduced in 2019, Modifind is a unique new part of the Unicheck suite aimed at detecting advanced text modifications. Students have found new ways to deceive Canvas plagiarism checkers by adding micro spaces, replacing characters with foreign equivalents, adding transparent symbols, placing images seen as text, etc. Modifind sees right through their tricks and informs the teacher of any suspicious text manipulations. Without its assistance, instructors would spend countless hours analyzing submissions layer by layer – a luxury most institutions simply cannot afford.
You can also watch a short video that highlights the main features of Unicheck as an indispensable Canvas plagiarism checker in the paradigm of contemporary education.
The rapid transition to online learning has placed pressure on academic institutions, forcing teachers to change their routines and adopt new digital skills. Let’s also not forget the increased workload for IT administrators charged with implementing and supporting LMS solutions. Students are affected by the new mode of education as well – struggling with remote access issues, suffering from social isolation and having a hard time finding motivation.
Aided by team expertise, Unicheck offers a unique and comprehensive product. As a trustworthy plagiarism checker for Canvas LMS, rather than focusing on making profits and penalizing students, Unicheck’s intent goes beyond to solve both educators' and students' academic challenges. Once you try it, you’ll see it for yourself. Now you know the answer to the question – Does Canvas check for plagiarism? The answer is “yes” when Unicheck empowers it.
