Newcastle and Westminster to stop using Turnitin in 2027
Both universities will leave the plagiarism checker when their contracts end. Newcastle cites concerns about data and AI, while Westminster says the tool does little to catch work written by AI.
Newcastle University and the University of Westminster will not renew their contracts with Turnitin, Times Higher Education reported on 9 October 2026.
The magazine said they follow the University of Southampton, which announced the same decision earlier this year. The concern began with proposed new Turnitin licence terms on processing student submissions with AI tools. The University of Aberdeen said Turnitin has postponed those terms from 7 July 2026 to September 2027. Aberdeen said it is reviewing its own use of Turnitin this year.
Newcastle said its education committee decided in September to begin a phased withdrawal. It cited other plagiarism tools it already has, the student experience and the potential use of staff and student data for AI from next year.
Westminster gave different reasons. It said running two submission systems confuses students. It also said similarity checking is "largely ineffective against the most significant current integrity risk", because generative AI writes original text. It said AI detection carries a risk of false positives, particularly for non-native English speakers.
Turnitin told Times Higher Education that it does not train a generative AI model. It said it trains a classifier that predicts whether text was written by AI. Thomas Lancaster of Imperial College London told the magazine that money is the deeper reason for universities leaving.
Westminster students will submit all coursework through Blackboard Assignment from February 2027. They can see past Turnitin work only until 31 July 2027, so the university tells them to download anything they want to keep. Newcastle staff are moving to Canvas assignments.
Newcastle has not yet chosen a replacement similarity checker. The final wording of Turnitin's licence is not known. Times Higher Education said several more universities are considering their contracts but gave no total.
Sources
- Times Higher Education More universities end Turnitin contracts as concerns mount
- Newcastle University University Statement on Turnitin
- Newcastle University Turnitin removal
- University of Westminster All online coursework submissions moving to Blackboard Assignment from semester 2
- University of Westminster Rationale for Retiring Turnitin
- University of Aberdeen Joint Statement on Turnitin