MDX should vow to stop using Turnitin if they go ahead with a plan to use students’ work to train their AI model.

Turnitin is a software used by many Universities to detect plagiarism in students’ work but have recently been criticised for proposals to use these submissions to train their AI models.

If the University chooses to use Turnitin, you as students don’t get to choose whether your work is uploaded to train the AI model, and so this policy would be taking advantage of students’ privacy and intellectual property.

I know that you all work incredibly hard on assignments, often through very differing and difficult circumstances, and so strongly believe that this effort should not then be abused to benefit a private company like Turnitin.

Therefore, a promise from the University to look into other options and move away from Turnitin would mean that you could feel more comfortable in the safety of your work and would prove that your university values your intelligence and efforts.

Since hearing this news, I have been in touch with Officers from SUs across the country, including NUS, to collectively oppose Turnitin’s proposition. But it is important for me to understand if our students back this work as I look into alternatives to Turnitin.

Signing this petition will mean I know that you back me on fighting for this change and will allow the University to make any decisions based on the opinions of students broadly.