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36 voters

Oppose Turnitin using student work to train AI

Submitted 2 months ago by Colette Ansell

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Turnitin has recently updated its policies so that it will be using students' intellectual property to train AI. While this is less likely to be an issue for those not currently working at an advanced level, for those who are, it could present issues of plagiarism and create problems when publishing in academic journals. When submitting our work to check for plagiarism, we do not expect the very tools used for that task to be the ones responsible. It raises genuine questions with regard to intellectual property, ethics, and of course the role of universities in the climate crisis, which is having devastating impacts all over the world, but particularly where uneven development exists due to legacies of capitalist imperialism. There are a number of student unions across the UK who have raised concerns with their universities and Turnitin has been cancelled. We call on Open University to do the same.

Charity Reed: 9:22am on 24 Sep 26 I absolutely oppose this. I'll be calling on the OU to cancel it and hope others will too.
Loz Harris: 10:41am on 25 Sep 26 I totally support abolishing Turnitin. As law students, we NEED to use Latin phrases, as well as both Harvard (Cite them Right) & OSCOLA referencing. The number of academic referrals following uploads to Turnitin is shocking, as the program does not recognise such Latin phrases or even OSCOLA
Leanne Rich: 12:21am on 27 Sep 26 I support scrapping turn it in for being so strict in regards to plagiarism it’s apparently fine to use our work against our consent to train AI surely this is going to lead to even more false flags when using genuine work as an example.
Sadie Marchant: 9:04pm on 27 Sep 26 Absolutely support this being done away with. Disgraceful from Turnitin
Colette Ansell: 12:33pm on 28 Sep 26 Good afternoon, Prior to raising the issue here, I also left a message on my current module forum (A113) and received a statement from the University by way of the Module Chair. Apologies, I do not know who issued the statement as this was not disclosed, but I am aware that my questions were passed to the Director of Teaching for the School and they sought guidance from the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. I hope the statement below is useful in supporting the Student Union, reps and other students in seeking responses from their own modules, programmes, schools, etc. Specific questions I asked were as follows: 1) Does A113 use Turnitin or any other AI-based plagiarism checker? 2a) What is the module stance on its use in training generative AI using students' hard work? 2b) What is the Open University's stance in training generative AI with students' hard work? 3) Are there any plans for the Open University to stop using Turnitin and/or any other AI-based plagiarism checker? Statement shared on the A113 Welcome Forum reads: 'Turnitin, a company based in the United States, has announced a general intention to use submitted data to help train its AI models. Whether that can take place depends on the contract and data protection laws of each country and, in the UK and Europe, on the consent of the education provider. The Open University has not agreed to Turnitin using any material that passes through its systems to train its AI. Turnitin has also given us specific assurances that no student data and no staff data are being used, or have ever been used, to train any large language model, and that it does not operate any AI model of its own.' Solidarity, Colette
Maria Stefanian: 2:10am on 10 Oct 26 TurnitIn poses two concerns already: false positives and lack of recognition when chat-gpt materials are tested - as far as the researchers told. I have used it in the past and was not happy to see the way it works. I expect the assessment of my work to be based on fair judgement. TurnitIn does not seem to support fair judgement or if it is aiming, it does not also fulfil the aim. Moreover, a student can have good days and bad days, can be busy, might not always have the same availability. A student can have various results and be all their work original. About citations being used without being marked correctly, that can be understood if they want to help evaluators track those ones better. However in certain subjects the solutions are actually expected to be in a similar format, for example where calculations are involved. There can only be one correct answer. Some students might express the answer differently yet the overall answer is considered wrong if not written as expected. I would only accept the use of TurnitIn if the above are considered and sorted. As long as false positives and lack of flagging when needed occur, there is no point to continue using it. About using the resources, to train AI absolutely not. That is copyright infringement sourcing basically educational piracy acts.
Nina Taylor: 8:45am on 14 Oct 26 I raised this issue at out last Board of Studies as I had read that Turnitin was planning to change its policy in Sept 2027 to use student essays to train AI models. Various universities said that they were going to stop using the company- including Southampton and York I think . Turnitin then back tracked and said they would not make a decision yet but give more time for discussion. I asked the person who presented on Academic Integrity whether they had heard anything about it and the person said no. I asked if the OU was going to continue using Turnitin and the person said that as far as they were aware it would. But the person in question also said that they doubted whether any change would be made to Turnitin's policies. So I guess it's a wait and see scenario
Shaun Merritt: 8:48am on 14 Oct 26 Turnitin is almost laughable when you submit a TMA and it flags page numbers as plagiarism. Tables and charts that we're told to copy onto our TMAs also get flagged. I think Turnitin is no longer fit for purpose and I support the abolishing it. A question however, if we abolish it then is there a new software to replace it so students and tutors can still check for genuine plagiarism?
Graham Rhind: 10:21am on 14 Oct 26 The couple of times I've used Turnitin the results were laughable, highlighting references and referenced quotes. It's the bluntest of tools and I know a number of modules state that their tutors don't use it. I don't use AI under any circumstances and reject any software that does, so I will not allow the OU to use my material if Turnitin changes its policies. I don't need Turnitin to tell me I'm not cheating, and though I understand the OU has issues with AI, there are better ways of identifying it.
Clare Charlton: 1:08pm on 14 Oct 26 AI has to learn,more we use it the more accurate it gets. Thats the nature of AI, Now, as a student I do not use AI and i do not use it to generate my knowledge BUT turnitin could be a great tool if it could be trained to be more accurate. While we cannot use it to write ourb essays and rightly so, gosh no, BUT it can be ethically used to enable good practice elsewhere.
Chris Aitchison: 2:52pm on 18 Oct 26 Categorically I do not consent to this without Turnitin providing direct financial compensation for my efforts
Connor Nelson: 1pm on 20 Oct 26 Absolutely agree with opposing Turnitin Turnitin has already admitted that 1% of flags they have is false so that’s always is in 1 in 100 students already been falsely accused of cheating as well as independent reports that non native English speakers are also flagged more unfairly as well. What is also concerning as well is that TurnItIn have essentially made a business with AI Detection by also now trying to take data from students, which is also a cause of concern because potential data breaches that can affect names and personal information, and I believe the OU should also side with other universities that are in favour of dropping this as the concept of TurnItIn has already been proven to be flawed but now exploitative of students.
Danielle Bagnall: 3:40pm on 20 Oct 26 I feel it is important for the OU to maintain solidarity with the correct procedures towards plagiarism and issues raised within other universities. I also agree that Turnitin should be cancelled.

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Oppose Turnitin using student work to train AI