As you may have read on several media platforms over the past few weeks, Turnitin is joining the Advance family of companies! We’re getting in touch to briefly explain what this means for you, and how we plan to move forward following the acquisition.
Why Advance?
Advance’s long-term perspective and commitment to education make them the perfect partner to help Turnitin pursue our mission of engaging students and teachers worldwide. While Advance may be best known for its ownership of Condé Nast, they have a broad and diverse portfolio of media, communications, and technology assets and have been looking to invest in education and educational technology.
What does this mean for you?
Turnitin will continue operations as usual. The acquisition by Advance will not impact our current offerings or how we work with our users. We will continue as a forward-thinking company that is focused on delivering high-value solutions for instructors and students that save time, improve student outcomes, and promote academic integrity. Advance is a long term home for Turnitin and will support us in realising our vision of being a platform for academic institutions, where students can submit papers or digital assignments across subject areas and file type.
Will there be any changes to how Turnitin operates after the acquisition?
Through this message, we’d like to reassure our customers that we will remain a stand-alone company with our own leadership, mission, values, and culture. The acquisition will allow us to continue to branch out into tools that support grading and feedback in additional disciplines, such as STEM fields, and create additional solutions that leverage leading-edge technologies, including AI, machine learning, and computer vision. Improvement is our only intended change moving forward. Together with Advance, we will further enhance the company’s core products, invest in emerging technologies and explore new opportunities to best serve you.
How will the acquisition affect the privacy of student data?
At Turnitin, we have no intention of using our database for anything other than refining our current offerings in order to contribute to the academic integrity policies that run through your institution. Integrity remains a core value which we will continue to uphold in all aspects of the business, including the standards and processes around data privacy and intellectual property. We are committed to treating each other and our customers with trust and respect; as such, we advocate for the protection and safeguarding of our users’ data in our interactions with our customers, and with other companies.
