95 per cent oppose Turnitin plans to train AI on student work, poll by The Lancaster Tab finds

A poll conducted by The Lancaster Tab has revealed that the majority of students who responded would object to having their assignments used to train AI tools.

Earlier this week, university students across the country raised concerns about planned changes to the licensing agreement of popular plagiarism checker, Turnitin.

Turnitin is an online assessment submission tool, used by almost all UK universities, that identifies how much of a student’s work is plagiarised or AI generated.

The software has proposed an update to its end-user licence agreement that would have required students and staff to consent to their submissions being used, in anonymised form, to develop its AI tools.

In light of the proposed changes, The Lancaster Tab asked its Instagram followers if they’d be happy with Turnitin using their submitted university work to train its AI services. Of over 700 responses, 95 per cent of people said they would not be happy. 

One objecting student told The Lancaster Tab they “value the notion that intellectual property should belong to the student who submitted the work,” arguing the policy changes could threaten this.

via Unsplash

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Posting on social media, Lancaster University Students’ Union education officer, Niamh McAuley, called the planned changes “disturbing,” arguing students should be able to make their own decisions about whether their work be used by companies to train their AI tools. 

Niamh explained she has emailed the university’s new pro-vice-chancellor to discuss how they can stop the new policies from affected Lancaster students.

Other universities across the UK have already acted upon the planned changes. While the University of Southampton has already begun phasing out its use of the software, a University of York spokesperson informed The Lancaster Tab it has contacted Turnitin and understands its “students’ data will not be used to train their AI services.”

A Turnitin spokesperson said the new policy would not be implemented any earlier than September 2027, allowing time “to discuss any changes with customers.”

On 24th September, Turnitin also announced the launch of its Trust Centre, to help students and institutions understand how it “approaches AI within its products and protects customer and student data.”

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Featured image via Unsplash