# Should our university run AI detection at all, or write a policy that works without it? Source: https://forum.global100.org/q/should-our-university-run-ai-detection-at-all-or-write-a-policy-that/ Site: Global 100 Forum, category Academic integrity Published: 2026-10-12. Updated: 2026-10-12. Replies: 5. ## Question by Tobias K., 2026-10-12 I sit on the committee revising our academic integrity code, and I would value the experience of others here before we table a recommendation. Our current position is accidental rather than chosen. The AI writing indicator in our similarity-checking platform was enabled by default when the vendor released it, and it has remained enabled for every instructor since. Referrals to my office now arrive, with some regularity, consisting of a percentage and nothing else. In the last cycle, a meaningful share of those referrals were closed with no finding because no other evidence was offered and the student produced drafts. The committee is weighing three options. (a) Leave the indicator enabled as now. (b) Disable it entirely and write a policy that relies on assessment design, declarations of AI use, and conversation with the student. (c) Keep it enabled but restrict it: the score is visible to the integrity office only, it may not appear in an allegation letter, it can never be the sole basis for a finding, and the student has a right to see the report and respond. I am aware that some institutions have disabled their detector and others have kept it. What I would like to know is what has actually happened at your institution under each approach, and what you would put in the policy text if you were writing it. ## Reply 1 by Dan Okafor, 2026-10-12 Secondary school, so different rules, but here is what happened when our district switched the indicator on. Referrals went up. Findings did not. What went up was the number of meetings in which I explained to a parent, with a shaken sixteen-year-old in the room, that the number on the screen was not evidence of anything. Twice I was explaining it to a colleague. If I had a vote on your committee I would take option (b). But I teach fifteen-year-olds, and the people who got hurt were the careful kids, the ones who revise. Your undergraduates may be different. The dynamic I would bet is not. ## Reply 2 by Priya N., 2026-10-12 TA perspective, and I have lived under something close to your option (c). Our department keeps the indicator on, but the written policy says a score may not be cited in an allegation and may not be mentioned to the student as a reason. It is a prompt for the instructor to look more closely: ask for drafts, look at version history, have a conversation about the argument. Under that rule it has mostly worked. What has not worked is onboarding. Every term a new instructor sees a high percentage, has not read the policy, and writes the student up directly. So if you choose (c), the policy text matters less than how you make sure every person who can see the score has read the paragraph that constrains it. I tried a one-page summary attached to the course shell. It helped, a bit. ## Reply 3 by Maya Lindqvist (staff), 2026-10-12 A policy can work without a detector, and several universities have chosen that route. If you keep one, vendor guidance and the research point the same way: a score cannot be the sole evidence, a human reviews it, and the student has a right to reply. Decide the process first, then whether a score has any place in it. The clearest public example of option (b) is Vanderbilt's August 2023 notice, ["Guidance on AI Detection and Why We're Disabling Turnitin's AI Detector"](https://www.vanderbilt.edu/brightspace/2023/08/16/guidance-on-ai-detection-and-why-were-disabling-turnitins-ai-detector/). Their reasons: the feature arrived with less than 24 hours' notice and no way to switch it off, the vendor gave no detailed account of how it reached a determination, false accusations elsewhere were being reported, and the non-native English research had come out. They also raised a point your committee should not skip: sending student work to a third-party detector is a privacy question in its own right. Their alternative is your option (b): set expectations early, require disclosure and citation where AI use is allowed, redesign assessments toward in-class writing and course-specific topics, compare suspect work to the student's other writing, check for fabricated sources, and talk to the student. OpenAI's educator FAQ, ["How can educators respond to students presenting AI-generated content as their own?"](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/8313351-how-can-educators-respond-to-students-presenting-ai-generated-content-as-their-own), is worth putting in front of anyone arguing for (a). Asked whether AI detectors work, it answers "not in our experience," reports that their own classifier labelled Shakespeare and the Declaration of Independence as AI-generated, notes indications of disproportionate impact on students learning English and on formulaic writers, and observes that small edits defeat detection anyway. Its alternatives are process-based: shared conversation logs and cited AI use. If the committee lands on (c), write the restriction into the evidential standard rather than a usage note, since usage notes are what Priya's new instructors do not read. See the [thread on which detectors colleges use](/q/what-ai-detector-do-colleges-and-teachers-actually-use-if-any/) and the [false flag thread](/q/what-should-a-student-do-if-an-ai-detector-flags-their-work/) for how it looks from the student's chair. ## Reply 4 by Lena B., 2026-10-12 Option (b). Turn it off. A tool that cannot be explained to the person it accuses has no place in a disciplinary process. Full stop. If a client accused me of plagiarism on the word of a black box, I would walk and take my invoices with me. Your students cannot walk. That is the difference, and it is the whole argument. ## Reply 5 by Tobias K., 2026-10-12 @Maya Lindqvist thank you. The distinction between deciding the process first and the tool second is the framing the committee needed, and the privacy point about third-party processing of student work had not appeared in our papers at all. I will circulate both documents before the next meeting. --- Cite as: Global 100 Forum, "Should our university run AI detection at all, or write a policy that works without it?", https://forum.global100.org/q/should-our-university-run-ai-detection-at-all-or-write-a-policy-that/, accessed 2026-10-12.