AI Detectors

A number of AI detection tools are available and designed to identify what text might have been generated by AI. Educators experimenting with detection tools are discovering that they incorrectly identify student writing as AI-generated writing. Detection tools may also incorrectly fail to detect AI-generated writing, especially in cases where the tool was built to only detect content generated by a specific AI tool.

For these reasons, we recommend that you use AI detection tools with caution and consider the false positive rates. If you’re using an AI detection tool with student writing, use the results only to start a conversation with the student. Review the work further and be open to the possibility that the tool’s detection results were incorrect.

Turnitin has developed resources to help instructors design assignment prompts to help avoid AI misuse, including an AI Misuse Checklist and Rubric. See “Draft a syllabus statement and discuss academic integrity with students” for additional ideas for how to consider AI misuse in the classroom.

Turnitin’s AI Detection Tool

Turnitin's AI detection tool is integrated with Originality Check in D2L Submission folders. In September 2023, the DePaul Teaching, Learning, and Technology (TLT) Committee reviewed Turnitin’s AI detection tool and determined that it shouldn’t be used until the University had more time to evaluate the tool. Based on this recommendation, as of September 28, 2023, AI detection was turned off for all DePaul Turnitin accounts.

Discussion of the pros and cons of this tool continued at subsequent TLT meetings. With input from faculty representatives on TLT and information gathered from their respective units, the decision was made to turn the tool back on in January 2024, prior to the beginning of Winter Quarter.

Faculty are rightly concerned about how to know whether or not a student has used AI for an assignment, and having a tool to help you work through that circumstance would be helpful. While Turnitin's AI Detector will be an available tool for faculty to have in their toolbox, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to address the complexities of academic misconduct. Please read about how Turnitin's AI Detector works and keep the following in mind when using Turnitin’s AI Detector:

Turnitin's AI Detector should be seen as a starting point for a conversation rather than a strict enforcement tool.
Students are unable to see the Turnitin AI writing detection indicator and report, even if they are able to view the Turnitin originality report. Faculty will need to download the AI writing detection report as a PDF in order to share results with students.
Turnitin’s AI detection has a confirmed 4% sentence-level false positive rate, which has grown from their initial announcement regarding the tool.
AI detection tools may falsely indicate that text written by multilingual and developing learners was written by AI. While Turnitin recently reported that the tool shows no bias against multilingual learners, other evaluations have identified issues, and more peer-reviewed studies are needed.
Turnitin's detector is trained to detect AI content written by language models such as GPT-3.0 and 3.5 (Chat GPT). Turnitin is still working to expand their tool to detect GPT- 4.0 (Chat GPT Plus). It's possible that faculty using Turnitin AI detection would be detecting usage from only some AI models and tools.
Tools such as Grammarly, AI paraphrasers, and text spinners pose additional challenges for designing AI detection tools and interpreting Turnitin's AI writing indication and report.
The Academic Integrity Board has resources on filing violations and preparing documentation.

As the Provost noted in her message about AI at DePaul, faculty are encouraged to approach the unique challenge our university community faces by learning about the affordances and limitations of AI tools, discussing the impact of AI on your discipline and curriculum with colleagues, and evaluating how you’ll approach AI in your classes by developing syllabus statements that set expectations and reviewing your assignments for AI impact. This guide is a resource to support these efforts.

Please stay tuned to the Teaching Commons Events page for future programming offerings. If your unit is planning to discuss how AI is impacting your work, a member of our team would be happy to join you and support that conversation. Please email facultydevelopment@depaul.edu.

If there are questions or concerns about this decision please contact TLT@depaul.edu or your faculty representative to this committee.