Setup guide for Grammarly Authorship in Blackboard LMS

How does Grammarly Authorship work?

Grammarly Authorship is an opt-in feature that helps students demonstrate the originality of their work by automatically labeling text in a document as typed, sourced, or unknown—in other words, text they wrote themselves, brought in from another source, or created with AI. It gives students a low-lift, transparent way to show authentic work and gives instructors insight into the writing process directly inside Blackboard.

Authorship stores activity locally and only shares data when a student explicitly shares their report and submits an assignment. Authorship currently works in a single Google Doc or Microsoft Word document.

Setting up Authorship in Blackboard involves three roles:

• Administrator: Installs the Authorship LTI 1.3 tool and REST API integration once for the whole institution.
• Instructor: Turns on Authorship for individual assignments and reviews reports as students submit.
• Student: Shares an Authorship report URL when submitting an Authorship-enabled assignment.

For administrators: Install the Authorship LTI

Complete the following steps in the Blackboard Administrator Panel to make Authorship available across your institution.

1. Register the LTI 1.3 tool

In the Blackboard Administrator Panel, go to LTI Tool Providers and select Register LTI 1.3 Tool. Enter the configuration values below.

Enter the Application (Client) ID when prompted, then click Submit.

Next, set Tool Status to Approved, and under Institution Policies, enable the Role in Course and Name options.

2. Create a user for the API integration

In the Administrator Panel, go to Users and select Create User. Create a dedicated “empty” user for the API integration. The system role and institution role can be any value. Note the username of this user—you’ll reference it as the Learn User in the next step.

3. Register the REST API integration

In the Administrator Panel, go to REST API Integrations and select Create Integration. Use the same Application ID as before, along with the configuration below.

4. (Optional) Update Authorship placement

Go to the Administrator Panel, navigate to LTI Tool Providers, click the dropdown icon next to Grammarly Authorship, and choose Manage Placement.

Click Synchronize placements in the top right corner.

After syncing, you should see a new placement: Grammarly Authorship Registration.

5. Register Grammarly Authorship

Navigate into any course, create course content, and choose the content market.

Choose Grammarly Authorship Registration by either clicking the thumbprint icon or the + icon.

Wait for the LTI to launch and click Connect to Grammarly.

A new tab will open, and you may be prompted to log in. Next, you should see the “Connection successful” message when the installation is complete:

Close the new tab, and you should see a confirmation message on the original screen. If you clicked the + icon in the content market, you can also remove this content from this course now.

Once these steps are complete, Authorship is installed institution-wide, and instructors can enable it on their assignments.

For instructors: Enable Authorship for an assignment

Once the Authorship app is installed, you can require an Authorship report on any assignment. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Open your assignment settings

Create or edit an assignment in Blackboard, then scroll to the bottom of the assignment settings panel to find Enable Grammarly Authorship under Originality Report.

2. Enable Grammarly Authorship

Switch on the Enable Grammarly Authorship option. A short confirmation explains that Authorship will be enabled after you save.

3. Save and return

Click Save and return to apply the setting to the assignment.

4. Confirm Authorship is enabled

Back in the assignment settings, the Originality Report row now reads Grammarly Authorship enabled.

After you enable Authorship, a Grammarly Authorship panel appears on the right whenever you open the assignment from Courses, Recent Activity, or the Calendar.

Before any submissions, the panel shows an empty state with no reports yet:

For students: Submit your Authorship report

When an instructor requires an Authorship report on a Blackboard assignment, follow the steps below to share your report along with your work.

Important: Before you start writing, turn on Authorship in your Google Doc or Word document first—it only tracks activity from the moment it’s turned on. Then open your report and turn on sharing so your instructor can view it, and copy the report’s share URL.

1. Open the assignment and check the requirements

After your instructor enables Authorship, opening the assignment from Courses, Recent Activity, or the Calendar shows a sidebar panel confirming that the assignment requires an Authorship report.

2. Paste your Authorship report URL

Click View Instructions in the assignment to see the Authorship report URL submission box alongside the instructions. Paste the share link from your report and click Submit.

3. Confirm the link was saved

After you submit the report URL, a confirmation message appears. You can still replace the report before you submit the assignment itself.

4. Accept the End User License Agreement

The first time you work on an Authorship-enabled assignment, you must review and accept the End User License Agreement. Declining blocks assignment submission.

5. Submit your assignment

Once the assignment is submitted, your Authorship report appears in the sidebar panel for your reference.

If you submit the assignment without first submitting the report URL, a warning appears stating that your Authorship report is missing and provides a box to submit it right there.

Both you and your instructor see an overall text score in the top-right corner of the submission view—the percentage of text marked as typed.