Turnitin AI writing reports update

Turnitin has informed us that they updated the AI writing report on 14 October to improve accuracy while keeping false positives to a minimum. This update is part of their ongoing work to respond to the evolution of generative AI.

How will this update affect your AI reports?

Previously generated AI writing reports will not be updated retroactively. However, this improvement may result in some changes in AI scores between draft submissions made before the update and final submissions made after the update.

This update is automatically applied to all new submissions to Turnitin assignments and to Blackboard assignments with Turnitin enabled. You will not see any visual changes to the AI writing report or its highlighting, and you do not need to change any settings to benefit from the update.

Reminder about AI report interpretation

Although this technology has improved since its release, Turnitin AI writing reports can occasionally produce false positives. This means the report might incorrectly flag text as AI-generated. For this reason, Turnitin results should always be reviewed by subject experts and used as supporting evidence, not as a replacement for academic judgement.

If you have any questions about this update, please message us at digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.

[CLOSED] Turnitin Delay in Similarity Reports and Student Upload Time

The Digital Education Office has been made aware of an unexpected service incident affecting Turnitin. During this time students may find that submission uploads are slow and both staff and students may find that similarity reports are stuck processing.

We have tested this locally. We are finding a delay in processing reports, but currently no delay in upload times.

Our expectation is that stuck reports will process once the issue has passed.

We are monitoring the reports from the supplier. We will update this post with more information when it becomes available.

 

Turnitin AI detection update

Turnitin has expanded its capabilities to detect the output of AI tools that re-arrange AI-generated text in an attempt to bypass AI-detection tools (sometimes called “humanisers”).

This AI detection update is incorporated into Turnitin’s AI writing report and does not require any changes in your assignment settings. There are no visual changes to the report or the highlighting in the report. Reports generated before August 27, 2025 will need to be resubmitted if you want them to make use of this new capability.

New Turnitin AI writing score column in the Assignment Inbox

From 5 August 2025, Turnitin has introduced a new AI writing score column within the Assignment Inbox of the classic Standard Assignment in Feedback Studio. This feature is retroactive and applies to previously submitted work.

The AI writing score column is only visible to instructors on the course. Students do not have access to it.

AI Writing disclaimer
AI Writing disclaimer

Before the AI writing scores become visible, users must first read, scroll down and accept a disclaimer. This will appear the next time you access a Turnitin assignment and only needs to be accepted once. If the disclaimer is declined, the AI score will remain blurred in the submission list.

If you have any questions about this feature, please get in contact with digital-education@bristol.ac.uk.