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The working group was established in response to increased visibility of Large Language Models (LLMs) following the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022. The service reached 100 million users within 2 months of launch. Media coverage generated both excitement and panic with examples of outputs successfully passing professional exams, writing passable job applications and producing work which could pass many assessments in education. Academia was ‘stunned by ChatGPT’s essay writing skills and usability’ (Herne 2022), but some in the sector approached the issue from a more critical and nuanced perspective urging us to ‘get off the fear carousel’ (Mihal 2023).
Naturally, many academic colleagues were concerned about academic integrity particularly following their own experimental activity prompting LLMs to iteratively generate responses to assessment briefs. Much of this experimentation resulted in passable submissions and this, combined with media coverage and subject specific conversations, resulted in a demand for institutionally approved detection tools. In the absence of an institutionally approved detection tool some academic colleagues began experimenting with web based detection tools, in some cases paying for their own subscription.
There are ethical issues with these approaches, both in the use of LLMs in the first place but also in the use of detection tools which necessitate uploading students' work to unknown systems without adequate policy, governance or ethical consideration. Many on the working group felt uneasy about the use of detection tools and did not endorse a University approach to the use of tools such as Turnitin AI detection or other tools such as Zero ChatGPT. Experts, from within the University, who teach and research AI, did feel that these tools were easily manipulated by subtle transformation approaches through different tools and they cited examples of how students can ensure their work is not flagged by these tools. Enabling detection tools was described as ‘no win arms race’. However some members did present a case, which was endorsed, that we should experiment, and learn, before making a final decision.
A decision was made to proceed with enabling Turnitin AI detection with the caveat that adequate guidance was provided to ensure that users understood the limitations of detection tools and were aware of ethical issues when using the tools.
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An AI detection score is accessible within the Originality Report window, for assignments submitted after 17th July 2023, to the new LTI Turnitin dropboxesdrop boxes. Historical assignments will not have this feature.
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When you click the AI detection score you will receive some more information about the text which has been matched as well as additional resources to help with any review.
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As Further information guidance is available in the attached PDF
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Please note, as of July 2023 , students will not see their AI detection score.