Tools for Identifying Academic Dishonesty

Plagiarism and AI Detection

The most comprehensive tool available at ISU for identifying academic dishonesty is ISU's subscription to Turnitin. If you would like to use this tool, you should create Turnitin links for your assignments within ISU's Moodle platform. For more help in creating Turnitin links, contact the ITRC at 208-282-5880. Turnitin will identify matches between student submissions on its site as well as with published materials available online. In addition, Turnitin provides an estimate of AI-generated content within individual student assignments. 

Further AI Detection Sites and Strategies

Another site that provides estimates of AI content within samples of writing is GPTZero.

If you suspect a submitted assignment may have been AI-generated outside the permissions you establish for your course, look for these signs in the writing:

• Information that is general, rather than specific, about the topic.
• A “flat voice.” This means that the tone is flat, or emotionless. If you have other examples of the student’s writing, you may well be able to spot differences.
• Awkward transitions, if they exist at all.
• Word repetition.
• Inaccuracy of information. AI-generated text is often fabricated and inaccurate.
• Problematic Citations. Check to see whether the in-text citations match the entries on the References or Works Cited page. Then check the entries themselves, which may be fabricated. If there are URLs provided for fake entries, they will lead to pages with 404 errors (“content not found”).
• If the assignment is a high-stakes one, consider contacting the Academic Integrity Council. It has access to a forensics linguistics tool through Turnitin that can identify several aspects in the writing that may signal whether the student is or is not the author of the document.