Rationale for Retiring Turnitin
Following consultation and approval by the University Executive Board, the University plans to retire Turnitin Feedback Studio upon the end of the current contract on 31 July 2027. Blackboard Assignment with SafeAssign will become the single system for online coursework submission and marking. The reasons for this decision are set out below.
Please note: In order to ensure that the University has copies of all student-submitted work in its archive, even though the contract does not formally end until 31 July 2027, no new Turnitin submissions will be able to be made after the end of Semester 1 in the 2026/27 academic year.
Enhancing the student experience
The University currently operates two parallel systems for coursework submission. These are Turnitin and Blackboard Assignment. This can create confusion for students who must navigate different interfaces depending on the module and generates a high volume of last-minute support calls.
Blackboard Assignment already handles approximately one-third of all submissions across the University and offers comparable functionality to Turnitin in several areas, including in-text commenting, quick-mark equivalents, and rubric-based marking.
Diminishing value of plagiarism detection
Traditional plagiarism detection works by matching submitted text against a database of existing sources. Generative AI produces original text that does not match any prior source, rendering similarity checking largely ineffective against the most significant current integrity risk.
While Turnitin has introduced AI detection capabilities, these remain probabilistic rather than conclusive and carry a recognised risk of false positives, particularly for non-native English speakers. The University's position is that assessment design, rather than detection technology, is the most effective long-term response to generative AI.
Alternative provision
Blackboard Assignment with SafeAssign provides similarity checking and supports rubric-based marking, in-text feedback and annotation tools.
Grammarly Authorship, included in the University's existing Grammarly licence, offers choice to students for authorship reporting and functionality that allows students to demonstrate the authenticity of their work.