What does Turnitin do at a New Zealand university?

Short answer first: Turnitin compares your submission with web pages, publications and earlier student work and returns a similarity report, which Canterbury calls a matching score rather than a plagiarism score. All eight universities publish that they use it, and whether you see a draft report is mostly the lecturer's call. On AI writing they differ: Auckland asked Turnitin not to switch its detector on, Canterbury uses it in some courses as partial evidence only, and Waikato's handbook says it will be using it from 2025. Turnitin says its AI score should never be the sole basis for action.

What follows sets out what the report shows, how each university runs it, what each says about AI detection, and what happens between a flagged report and an outcome, including what you may ask for. The rules on using AI in the first place are in the ChatGPT rules guide.

What is a similarity report, and what is it not?

A similarity report is a list of matches. Turnitin compares your text with its database and highlights the passages that also appear somewhere else, with a percentage for the share that matched. It does not decide whether any match is plagiarism. That judgement belongs to a person, and several of the universities spell this out on their student pages.

• It is a matching score. Canterbury's academic integrity page says the percentage is not a plagiarism score but a matching score, and that if misconduct is suspected, information from Turnitin would not by itself determine any wrongdoing.
• Some matching is normal. Victoria's page on understanding Turnitin says it is normal to have at least some matching text, that a match does not always mean plagiarism, and that the marker interprets the report.
• Quotes and references can count. Victoria notes that titles, common assignment forms, reference lists and quotes in single quotation marks may be highlighted, because Turnitin does not recognise single quotation marks.
• Templates inflate it. Massey's Turnitin page says Turnitin matches common phrases, names, theories and quotes, so a high percentage does not necessarily mean plagiarism, and a lecturer-provided template can raise it.
• Other students' work is in the database. Otago's page on academic integrity and misconduct says submissions are compared with internet sources, reference databases and work by other students held in institutional repositories.

Read the report the way a marker will: ignore the headline number and look at what is highlighted and where it came from. A long passage in one colour needs checking, and so do patches in several colours, which Victoria reads as sources stitched together without enough paraphrasing. Course names and three-word matches are usually noise.

Reading the percentage and the colours

Canterbury publishes the bands behind the coloured icon: blue for no matching text, green from one word to 24 per cent, yellow from 25 to 49, orange from 50 to 74 and red from 75 to 100 per cent. The colour tells you how much matched, not whether the match was allowed. Lincoln's student guide to similarity reports adds that a literature review will naturally match more sources than a personal reflection.

Which universities use Turnitin, and how?

All eight publish that they do, and where the pages say how, it runs inside the university's learning platform with the settings in staff hands. The settings matter most to you, because they decide whether you see a report, when, and what your work is compared against. The table sums up what each university's own pages say about drafts and about AI detection.

• Auckland leaves it to staff. Its student page on Turnitin says the University subscribes to the service for use at the discretion of academic staff, and that it suits text-based work best.
• AUT runs most submissions through it. Its page on assessments and assignments says assessments submitted in Canvas usually go through Turnitin, and that you can view but not change what you submitted.
• Otago leaves it to departments. Its integrity page says the use of Turnitin is at the discretion of departments and paper co-ordinators, from checking a whole class to checking one assignment a marker has doubts about. Its AskOtago answer on Turnitin says the service is integrated into Aoroa Brightspace, Blackboard and Moodle.

Can you check a draft before you submit?

Sometimes, and it is worth finding out in the first week. A draft check shows you what Turnitin will flag and lets you fix a missed citation before a marker sees it. The universities leave the setting to lecturers, so two courses in the same semester can differ. Where there is no draft option, your final upload produces the first and only report.

• Otago recommends drafts. It leaves the option to lecturers but says the University recommends allowing students to submit a draft, and that students should not be able to see the report once they make a final submission.
• Auckland's staff choose the timing. Its TeachWell page on Turnitin shows staff deciding whether students see the report immediately, after a delay or never, and asks them to consider whether students should get the chance to correct and resubmit.
• Massey sometimes allows it. Its page says some lecturers let you upload a draft and change the work, while in other courses the final upload goes straight to Turnitin and cannot be changed; a report can take from a few minutes to several hours.
• Lincoln usually allows it. Its Turnitin page says that in most cases you can submit early, get feedback and resubmit.
• Waikato points you to drafts. Its assessment handbook page on academic integrity says you can use Turnitin reports to improve assignment drafts and find missing sources.

Without a draft option you can still do the report's job yourself. Check that every quotation has marks and a citation, and that each paraphrase is genuinely in your words and cited. Canterbury points students worried about a high score to its Academic Skills Centre.

What to fix when the score is high

Canterbury's advice is specific: put quotation marks around every quote and cite it, do not lean on quotations, and make sure your own words are not too close to the original. Victoria's warning about single quotation marks belongs here too. Lincoln's guide shows how to exclude quotes and references from your view of the report, which tells you whether the rest of the match is a problem.

Does your university use Turnitin to detect AI writing?

This is where the eight part ways. Turnitin offers an AI writing indicator alongside the similarity report, and each university decides whether to switch it on and how much weight to give it. Some have said so publicly, and others say nothing on the public pages read for this guide. Canterbury and Massey both say in writing that the score is not enough on its own.

• Auckland switched it off. Its TeachWell page says Auckland piloted the tool and asked Turnitin not to enable it on its account when it was released on 5 April 2023, noting that institutions in Australia and the UK did the same over concerns about testing, transparency and effectiveness.
• Canterbury uses it as a first flag. Its Gen-AI FAQs for students say AI writing detectors, specifically Turnitin, are used in some courses as an initial step, may be partial evidence in a misconduct case, and would not generally be the sole evidence.
• Waikato announced it for 2025. Its page on generative AI says that from 2025 it will be using Turnitin functionality to identify work produced with generative AI.
• Massey has access, with limits. Writing in June 2024, Massey's Provost said the university has access to Turnitin's AI detector, that it should be used only with human judgement and never as a stand-alone measure of misconduct, and that it can pick up writing assistants such as Grammarly's rewrite feature and Quillbot's paraphraser.
• Lincoln's recommended service has it. A staff note from August 2025 says Turnitin Integrity, the recommended of Lincoln's two Turnitin services, offers flags for suspicious text and AI detection, and Lincoln's student guidelines say submissions will be analysed for evidence of GenAI use.
• Otago, Victoria and AUT say less. No university-wide statement appeared on the Otago or Victoria pages read for this guide. One Otago department, Media, Film and Communication, puts suspect work through detectors such as GPTZero and may ask for a short oral exam. AUT says it upholds integrity through assessment design rather than reliance on detection.

The same essay could meet no AI detector at Auckland and a flag at Waikato. What does not change is that a flag opens a conversation or an investigation, not a finding, and your drafts and notes are what answer it.

What does Turnitin say about its own AI score?

The vendor's guidance is more cautious than many students expect, and it is worth citing if a score is used against you. Turnitin publishes it in its guides for instructors, which also explain why low scores are hidden. None of it is a university rule, but every university that uses the indicator is working with the same limits.

• It may be wrong. Turnitin's guide to the AI Writing Report says its model may misidentify human-written, AI-generated and AI-paraphrased text, so the score should not be used as the sole basis for adverse action against a student.
• Low scores are hidden. Turnitin says false positives are more common below 20 per cent, so scores from 1 to 19 per cent show as an asterisk with no highlights.
• It is separate from similarity. The AI percentage is independent of the similarity score, and AI highlights do not appear in the similarity report.
• Students cannot see it. Turnitin's AI detection FAQ says only instructors and administrators can see the indicator, and that Turnitin does not make a determination of misconduct.
• The vendor publishes a target. Turnitin's AI detection FAQ says it aims to keep its false positive rate under 1 per cent for documents with over 20 per cent AI writing, which it describes as one wrongly flagged document in every 100 written entirely by people.

If a case rests on an AI percentage, you are entitled to ask what else supports it. Canterbury and Massey have both said the score cannot carry a finding alone, and the vendor says the same.

What happens after a report raises a concern?

The steps look alike across the universities even where the names differ: an informal look, written notice, a chance to respond, a decision and an appeal. A careless first-year slip usually stays with the course, while deliberate or repeated cases go to a central officer or committee. The table gives the response times, standards and appeal windows each university publishes.

Massey's student pages describe the same stages, with a meeting and an appeal in most cases, but do not give the times. AUT's Academic Integrity Procedures and Guidelines have the Academic Integrity Officer investigate whether there is conclusive evidence of a breach, give you 14 days to accept the officer's letter or ask for the faculty disciplinary committee, and allow 14 days to appeal that committee's decision to the Vice-Chancellor.

The first email

Most cases begin with a message from the person who marked the work or runs the course. Under Auckland's Student Academic Conduct Statute it must tell you what is alleged, that you may respond and explain any extenuating circumstances, and that the process goes ahead without you after 10 working days. Otago's letter must set out the possible penalties, and Victoria's must include all the relevant information the decision-maker holds.

The meeting

You can bring someone. Auckland allows a support person and, unless the interview is online and recorded, has a second staff member present, then gives you a written summary to comment on. Massey allows a support person or a legal representative. Canterbury's 2024 misconduct guide for students lets you take written notes but not make an audio or video recording of the interview.

What can you ask for during the process?

More than most students realise. The policies give you rights to information, time, support and review, and they only work if you use them. Ask in writing, keep copies of everything, and answer with evidence of how the work was made rather than an argument about the percentage.

• The evidence. Lincoln's Academic Integrity Policy and Procedure says an accused student is given the evidence the suspicion rests on and time to consider it, and Waikato's Student Discipline Regulations require extra evidence to be disclosed before a hearing.
• Free advocacy. Victoria's Academic Misconduct Procedure names the VUWSA advocacy service, Canterbury's guide the UCSA student advocates, and Massey its Student Advocacy Service.
• Reasons in writing. Otago's Student Academic Misconduct Procedures require the outcome in writing with reasons and details of the right of appeal, normally sent within two working days of the outcome being reported to the Head, Student Experience.
• To know what is recorded. Victoria's procedure says a finding does not appear on the academic record, though the University keeps its own record; Canterbury keeps findings in a private register for ten years and may disclose them to a professional body.
• Your own evidence, heard. Canterbury's FAQ tells a student accused of misusing AI to collect earlier drafts, workings and planning notes, and Massey says drafts, notes and summaries of readings help show the work is yours.

Keep drafts with dates, notes kept apart from copied text, and the version history of your file from the start of every assignment. Note-taking habits that separate quotes from your own words help prevent accidental matches. How universities may hold and use your submissions is covered in the student data privacy guide, and grade consequences in the exam preparation guide.

Where Notibo fits

Notibo does not check similarity or detect AI, and nothing it produces should go into an assessment as your writing. It is a study tool: it records a lecture on a computer or takes an audio file you upload and returns a transcript and structured notes, and it turns PDF, PPTX and DOCX files into notes and flashcards. You get Pro free for 14 days, with 240 minutes of audio, and no card is asked for. After those 14 days the free plan covers 30 minutes of audio a month, with a transcript and notes.

Used for revision, it fits the advice above. Notes you learn from are not submissions, and writing the assignment yourself from what you learned keeps the text your own. Record a lecture only with the lecturer's permission, and check your university's generative AI rules before uploading course material.

Flashcards with spaced repetition from a recording come with Pro, at 9.99 euro a month or 88.99 euro a year. More on how students use it is on the students page.