It’s difficult to be an educator and student in 2025—especially when it comes to managing student writing. As if things weren’t hard enough during the pandemic, now educators have been thrown into the deep end of a cold pool with generative AI with little to no time to understand its implications, let alone adjust their teaching practices.
From my conversations with high school and college educators over the last two years, many have shared concerns that they don’t feel comfortable guiding students on productive uses of generative AI because they themselves are still trying to understand it. However, they recognize the critical need to help students leverage the technology ethically and responsibly.
Many educators also shared that they can recognize cases of AI misuse in students’ writing, and can identify the signs of a student who hasn’t applied themselves to develop the necessary knowledge and skills required for the course. They do not want to give the student credit (and a degree) that they may have not earned. They believe it diminishes the value of the education system.
As for students, they too are in a precarious position. They want to harness this new, powerful tool but don’t really know the technology’s limits and consequences. And I don’t mean the consequences of using it in an unsanctioned way in the classroom - I mean the tool’s detriment on their own learning and development. I’ve also heard that many students are concerned their peers are misusing generative AI in ways that may be putting them at an academic disadvantage.
Introducing Turnitin Clarity
It’s with this backdrop that we designed our new product, Turnitin Clarity.
Turnitin Clarity introduces a composition space for students to draft their writing assignments with transparency and, when permitted and guided by the educator, receive AI-generated feedback on their writing to help them improve their work. This gives students the confidence to demonstrate that their submissions are original and representative of their learning.
As for educators and administrators, it's an all-in-one place to establish the acceptable use of AI by assignment and to help students use AI responsibly. With Turnitin Clarity, they can view the student's writing activity, and access insights to easily assess originality, leveling the field and ensuring fair, equitable grading.
What is driving the demand for transparency in student writing?
As generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Co-Pilot, and Gemini evolve, academic institutions are facing growing pressure to help students use AI responsibly while balancing concerns that students may turn to AI as a shortcut solution, which can lead to diminished critical thinking and reduced resilience. While generative AI tools offer students the opportunity to enhance their writing, educators lack transparency to verify authorship, ensure fair assessment, and guide ethical writing practices.
Educators are becoming increasingly aware that a final paper doesn’t always tell the full story. Did the student struggle through multiple drafts, or was the entire submission copied and pasted in one go? This has led many to ask, “Can I access student revision history?” but the answer is often unclear. While students could provide a copy of their revision history, this puts the onus on them and doesn’t always guarantee accuracy.
Without a reliable way to track the writing process, institutions may struggle to differentiate between genuine effort, responsible AI use, and potential misconduct—making it harder to:
- Reduce uncertainty in academic integrity cases.
- Provide fair and equitable grading.
- Establish clear policies on responsible AI use and monitor compliance.
Writing transparency offers educators the opportunity to identify where a student may have bypassed critical thinking stages, allowing them to guide students in developing perseverance and a more resilient approach to their writing (and thinking) challenges.
What does full visibility into the student writing process look like?
While AI writing indicators support academic integrity, they are just one part of the solution. We need to meet students where they are, guiding them to use AI as a learning tool, and leveraging detection as a complementary safeguard, while reminding ourselves that, “...as we all glide into an artificially drafted future, it's clear that a human questioning mindset will be needed. Indeed, our investigative skills and critical thinking techniques could be in more demand than ever before,” (O’Brien, 2023).
Encouraging students to leverage AI for creativity, research, and writing can deepen their understanding of AI’s ethical implications in academia—an approach that enriches critical thinking skills, originality, and personal growth. These skills are essential and will extend beyond students’ academic careers.
How does Turnitin Clarity support students and educators?
Turnitin Clarity offers transparency and integrity insights, empowering administrators, educators, and students to uphold academic integrity while fostering responsible AI usage.
What sets Turnitin Clarity apart is its ability to bridge the gap between students and educators. It offers a composition workspace where students can draft, edit, and refine their work confidently, all while enabling educators to gain insights into the students’ writing process. Educators can offer tailored feedback, helping students refine their work and develop ethical writing habits in a supportive and collaborative environment.
Educators are in the driver’s seat within Turnitin Clarity. They are able to set permissions for AI usage at the assignment level depending on their pedagogical goal. While they also have access to a detailed view of how the writing came together, we realize that this may be information overload in many cases. We’ve worked with dozens of instructors over the past six months to refine our approach in how and where we flag integrity issues that may require a second look.
One-stop composition space for students
Leveraging the institution’s existing Turnitin workflow, students can tackle every aspect of a student’s writing assignment safely within Turnitin Clarity; from accessing the assignment’s instructions and rubric, to writing and editing their submission over multiple sessions prior to the due date within the institution’s Learning Management System.
Responsible use of AI tools
For many students, AI-powered tools are part of their learning and writing process, without the benefit of educator guidance. However, when Turnitin Clarity’s optional AI writing assistant feature is enabled by an educator, students can use AI as a foundational writing assistant, empowering them to integrate the technology in a responsible and ethical way.
A view of the student writing process, not just the end product
Within the feature, educators can see their students’ entire drafting process - such as pasted text, typing patterns, construction time and draft history - not just their final submission. Students’ writing histories can be viewed through the video playback function and easy-to-interpret reporting. When enabled, educators can also see where and how students may have used AI tools, and provide guidance based on their usage. This will help ensure students’ work meets the institution and assignment’s integrity standards.
Integrity insights all in one place
Integrated with Turnitin Feedback Studio, Turnitin Clarity makes it easier for educators to access all of Turnitin’s integrity insights in one place to quickly determine the originality of a student’s written work. Instead of educators having to request, manage, and review students’ version histories and reports from other applications, with Turnitin Clarity, these insights are already available when the student submits their assignment, kickstarting constructive, trust-building conversations. Insights can include similarity checking, AI writing detection,* submission metadata,* grading and feedback, writing reports, and playback with flags that further suggest educator review.
*available with Originality add-on
A collaborative experience with actionable feedback
At Turnitin, we believe it's not just about assessing a writing submission, but rather a collaborative experience between educator and student. Educators can deliver tailored and personalized feedback quickly and easily with features available within Turnitin Feedback Studio, helping cultivate a dynamic writing experience for both students and educators.
Is Turnitin Clarity available to customers now?
Turnitin Clarity will be available as a paid add-on for all Turnitin Feedback Studio customers starting in the third quarter of 2025.
As with all new, innovative products, there will be use cases, features, and opportunities that we have yet to discover and build. We will continue to iterate quickly as we learn and listen to customer feedback, incorporating qualitative and quantitative data from educators, administrators and students.