Changes to Turnitin’s license agreement spark outrage amongst UK universities

Recent changes to Turnitin’s license agreement regarding the use of student work in the training of their AI model ‘Turnitin Clarity’ have sparked outrage amongst UK universities.

These alterations have directly caused the University of Southampton to rescind their subscription to the use of Turnitin across the university for any courses in the 2026/27 academic year.

The use of this AI model for Turnitin would attempt to create a further transparency between the student and the marker.

The proposed tool would act as a way for students to use AI to sharpen their assignments and allow those marking it to see with clarity the extent to which AI has been used.

The changes to their license agreement would benefit the creation of this AI by “[allowing] it to use student submissions to train AI services“.

This is the fact that numerous universities have taken umbrage with.

No changes regarding AI and the license agreement will take place during the 2026/27 academic year

University of Warwick Press

The University of Southampton has taken this action as “[Turnitin] has not fully clarified what future changes may be imposed”, thus creating an area of uncertainty regarding the use of student work in the creation of AI programmes.

Furthermore, Sam Dickinson, the Union Affairs Officer for the University of York, has encouraged a clear dialogue between the Students’ Union and the university regarding “the fundamental right to your intellectual property and labour”.

Additionally, the Students’ Unions of the Universities of East Anglia, Reading, Lancaster, and St Andrews have expressed discomfort with the use of students’ work training AI services.

Emily Bannister, the University of St Andrews’ Students’ Union President for education, described the action as a “fundamental challenge to the principles of academic integrity”.

When contacted, the University of Warwick’s Press Office told The Boar that “no changes regarding AI and the license agreement will take place during the 2026-27 academic year.”

They have clarified the existence of an ongoing dialogue between Turnitin, UCISA (Universities and Colleges Information Systems Association), other institutions, and the university – one that will be used “to assess any proposed changes to the license agreement in the future.”

Warwick’s Students’ Union stated that they “condemn the proposed changes… that would see student submissions being used to train AI models.”

They describe the detrimental impact that AI has had on the graduate job market and how objectionable Turnitin’s proposed changes would be.

The Students’ Union has called upon the university “to move away from Turnitin”, ending with a warning that “your work could be used to train AI models in the future.”