United StatesEducation2023Vanderbilt University
Turnitin AI writing detection
Vanderbilt disabled Turnitin's AI detector after months of use and testing
Problem
The detector was intended to identify student writing produced by tools such as ChatGPT. It became available to Vanderbilt instructors through their existing Turnitin workflow in April 2023.
Approach
Vanderbilt said the feature arrived with little advance notice and without an initial option to disable it. After months of use, testing and discussions with Turnitin and other universities, it disabled the detector on 16 August 2023 for the foreseeable future. The university cited false-positive risks, limited transparency and concerns about AI detectors' treatment of writing by non-native English speakers. It directed instructors toward clearer expectations, conversations with students and revised assessments.
Results
No published figures
Takeaway
The university received a consequential assessment feature before it had enough information to judge its reliability. Its subsequent review led it to remove the feature from the teaching workflow.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Education
- Business function
- Internal work and knowledge managementProduction and quality
- Innovation type
- Process innovation
- AI technology
- Predictive analytics and ML
- Adoption
- Vendor solution
- Goal
- Quality and risk
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
The announcement established when instructors received access and explained the detector's purpose. It warned that the university could not establish how the tool worked or whether its measures were reliable.
Vanderbilt confirmed that it had used and tested the detector before disabling it. It explained its concerns about false positives, transparency and fairness, and described alternatives for instructors.
Full details are in the original sources.
