Academic integrity tools for universities in 2026: detection versus process evidence

Two categories, one question

Every academic integrity tool sold to a university in 2026 answers the same question: did this student write this. The two categories answer it from opposite ends. Detection tools read the finished text and estimate the probability that a machine produced it. Process-evidence tools record the writing as it happens and hand the instructor a record of how the document came together. The first produces a score. The second produces a replay and, in most cases, no finding at all.

The distinction matters for procurement because the two categories fail differently. A detector fails by being wrong about a student, and the institution carries that. A process tool fails by not having a record, which is a gap rather than an accusation.

Detection tools

Turnitin AI writing detection

Turnitin’s indicator reports a percentage of a submission likely to be AI-written inside Feedback Studio, which is licensed per institution. Turnitin states a document-level false-positive rate under 1 percent for documents with more than 20 percent AI writing, and publishes a page on understanding those false positives. Its own data describes the scale of the problem it is aimed at: 15 percent of submissions between October 2025 and February 2026 were more than 80 percent AI, against 3 percent at launch in 2023, and 19.4 percent of US higher-education submissions were heavy-AI in the second quarter of 2026.

A number of institutions have switched the indicator off. Vanderbilt did so in August 2023 with a public statement. Northwestern, Yale and Johns Hopkins followed across 2023 and 2024. The University of Waterloo turned it off in September 2025 after an internal test flagged human writing as 100 percent AI. Curtin University turned it off on January 1, 2026. Australian Catholic University, per an ABC report in October 2025, had seen about 6,000 allegations, roughly 90 percent AI-related, with a large share dismissed. Public trackers count more than sixty institutions. The running list has dates and sources.

Source: turnitin.com blog and press materials; Vanderbilt Brightspace statement; Waterloo announcement; Curtin notice; ABC News Australia; GradPilot tracker; all checked 2026-09-08.

GPTZero and peers

GPTZero and similar standalone detectors sell a score per document, usually with a free tier and institutional pricing on request. The research on error rates applies to the category rather than to one vendor. Liang, Yuksekgonul, Mao, Wu and Zou at Stanford reported in Patterns (2023) that GPT detectors flagged 61.3 percent of TOEFL essays by non-native English writers as AI-generated. Common Sense Media found in 2024 that 20 percent of Black teens reported a false accusation of AI use, against 7 percent of white teens. The court record is now catching up: in Newby v. Adelphi University (2026 NY Slip Op 26021) a 100 percent Turnitin flag was found “without valid basis” and the record expunged, and Rignol v. Yale, over a GPTZero result, is pending. The lawsuits page tracks the rest.

Source: Liang et al., Patterns, 2023; Common Sense Media, 2024; Justia; GradPilot tracker; checked 2026-09-08.

Process-evidence tools

Turnitin Clarity

Launched at SXSW EDU in March 2025 with general availability in July 2025. Students compose inside Turnitin’s own online editor, and the instructor receives a Writing Report with playback. It is sold as a paid add-on to Feedback Studio, quote-only, and requires an institutional Turnitin contract; there is no individual purchase path. Turnitin’s student FAQ notes the editor is online-only and warns of lost work when switching devices mid-session. Pilots are documented at SJSU, UCLA and CU Boulder for 2026. The Chronicle of Higher Education covered it in August 2026 under the headline “To Catch AI Cheating, Turnitin Wants to Monitor Students’ Keystrokes,” and Turnitin published a rebuttal.

Cursive

Keystroke-level authorship verification with a free Moodle plugin, a browser extension for Google Docs and Word, and integrations with the major LMSs. Starter and Enterprise tiers are quote-based and priced per student; no self-serve individual plan was found. Blackboard (Anthology) announced its acquisition of Cursive on September 2, 2026.

Grammarly Authorship

Announced October 2024 and free inside Grammarly Free and Pro. Authorship is a student-side feature of the Grammarly extension and apps that logs what was typed, pasted or AI-generated while the student writes, and produces a report the student can choose to share. It integrates with Canvas (September 2025) and Blackboard (August 2026), and Grammarly reported more than 5 million Authorship reports by August 2026. Two limits matter for an institution: the student must have Grammarly installed and Authorship on, and the report is theirs to share or not. Plagiarism Today reported on November 6, 2025 that AI text passed through Grammarly’s own rewrite tools reads as typed in Authorship.

Process Feedback

A free, nonprofit-style tool with a hosted editor at write.processfeedback.org and a Google Docs extension, producing a process report with a paste-source breakdown. It positions itself as an alternative to AI detection and is recommended in r/Professors threads for the paste breakdown. Its pricing page returned an error when checked, so any paid tier is unverified.

EssayGuard

A hosted browser editor; students install nothing and the instructor shares one link. EssayGuard records every keystroke, revision, pause and paste with server-side timestamps, and periodic document snapshots cross-check the event stream, so a fabricated history reads as unrecorded rather than as writing. The instructor gets a replay, pasted text stays marked, and a printable evidence report is built for a reader with no reason to trust the instructor. There is no stylistic analysis, no verdict, no camera, no tab monitoring, no training on student work, and a retention window set per assignment. It is not an AI detector and does not score prose.

Source: turnitin.com Clarity pages and student FAQ; sjsu.edu; The Chronicle of Higher Education, August 2026; cursivetechnology.com; einpresswire.com, September 2, 2026; grammarly.com; Plagiarism Today, November 6, 2025; processfeedback.org; essayguard.io; all checked 2026-09-08.

What each costs an institution

Source: vendor sites as listed above; phrasly.ai reports Feedback Studio at roughly $3 to $6.70 per FTE; checked 2026-09-08.

A procurement checklist

• FERPA role. Ask the vendor to state it in writing. EssayGuard acts as a School Official with a Legitimate Educational Interest; records stay under the institution’s control.
• DPA. Ask whether it is published before the first call. EssayGuard’s is at essayguard.io/dpa and campus agreements can run on your paper.
• Retention. Is it set per assignment, per campus, or not at all. EssayGuard sets 30, 90 or 365 days per assignment and deletes at the end of the window.
• SOC 2 status, stated plainly. EssayGuard is not SOC 2 certified today. A Type II report is on the roadmap. Ask every vendor the same question and expect a yes or a no.
• Who can read a record. The instructor, the student, and anyone the instructor deliberately shares with. On EssayGuard department and campus plans, an integrity office can be given read access scoped to the sessions attached to an open case.
• Whether the tool issues a finding. If it does, ask who defends the finding when a student appeals.
• Student install and the accommodation path. A hosted editor needs a browser; an extension needs a device the student controls.
• Training on student work. EssayGuard does not train models on student writing. Ask the others.

Department and campus plans

Most institutions do not start with a campus license. One instructor runs a free semester, a chair sees the evidence report, and a department plan follows. EssayGuard’s free semester covers every course you teach with unlimited students, once per teacher. The Department plan is from $495 per year and includes up to eight instructors, a chair view, and integrity-office access scoped to open cases, on one annual invoice. The Campus plan is from $2,950 per year, priced on total students, with the DPA on the institution’s paper and billing aligned to the fiscal year. Purchase orders are accepted. Details are on the pricing page.

What no tool in either category can settle

A process record shows how text entered the editor: typed or pasted, in what order, with what pauses and rewrites. It does not show whether the ideas were the student’s, and neither does a detector score. The difference is what each hands to the person who has to decide. A score hands them a number to defend. A record hands them evidence for a conversation, and the conversation is still where the finding gets made.