What happened?

You may have noticed colleagues at other institutions discussing Turnitin’s new AI Writing Detection tool. However, when you access your Turnitin similarity reports in Canvas, you won’t find it. Why? 

In the weeks leading up to Turnitin’s release of the new tool, I joined colleagues from other offices to discuss the new tool and its capabilities. As those discussions progressed, concerns arose that led the group to recommend a pause for the rollout of Turnitin’s product. It is important to note that CSU joined other Unizin institutions in asking to join Turnitin’s “suppression list.” 

The concerns were: 

• A continued lack of specifics/ details about how Turnitin arrives at its evaluation of student work. This is the so-called “black box” aspect of the service. Unlike the “similarity report,” faculty and student users cannot click through and see a 1-1 comparison of the text in question. 
• The inability of institutions or instructors to turn off the AI detection score in Feedback Studio. Every essay would produce a score, whether the instructor wanted it or not. 
• We were being forced to operate on Turnitin’s timeline, not CSU’s. Our campus needs more preparation, information, and education before rolling out a tool with such a potential impact on our courses, student learning, and academic misconduct investigations.

What happens next?

Moving forward, the plan in place is for a faculty-led group to review the tool, study the information provided by Turnitin, and consider the big questions about using third-party detection tools. Ultimately, that group will make a recommendation to our university leadership regarding whether or not CSU will adopt it and, if so, what the timeline will look like. 

As the Director of the Academic Integrity Program, I hear from faculty often and I know that AI writing is posing a serious challenge to our courses. At the same time, I know that our faculty have an appreciation for the challenges posed by an institutionalized detection tool that we don’t fully understand. As more information becomes available, I commit to sharing it with you. 

As always, feel free to call or email me with your questions or otherwise let me know how I can assist you.