San Francisco State University.
- Detection status
- Turnitin's AI-detection score discontinued campus-wide June 1, 2024 (a CSU contract change); no AI-writing detector is currently provided, but the Office of Student Conduct's own guidance still names "an Academic Integrity report from TurnItIn or other source" as acceptable evidence of AI-generated work
- Office in these sources
- Office of Student Conduct (OSC) · Student Services Building, Room 402 · 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132 · 415-338-2032 · conduct@sfsu.edu
- Ombuds or advocacy office
- SFSU states plainly that “the campus does not have an official Ombudsperson for students” — Care & Support Team (formerly Dean on Call), within the Dean of Students Office, which instead lists “Ombuds” as one of four approaches it takes with students, alongside case management, advocacy and referral; contact is by online form only, no phone or email published on its own page. SFSU's University Ombuds is a separate office and serves “all matters of concern or conflict among employees at SF State” — not students · dos.sfsu.edu — Care & Support Team · sfsu.edu — University Ombuds
- Sources last checked
- Sep 1, 2026
Reproduced from the institution's own pages quoted below — potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which one governs any case.
SFSU's published sources on AI detection and academic integrity, quoted and linked below. SFSU's own documents sit in two layers: the systemwide CSU Student Conduct Process (Executive Order 1098), which SFSU's Office of Student Conduct states it follows for evaluating allegations and setting sanctions, and SFSU's own Office of Student Conduct pages, which largely restate or reproduce that systemwide procedure for a campus audience. SFSU's Academic Senate also requires every course syllabus to include a statement on how generative AI may and may not be used in that course (Course Syllabus Policy #S24-257), so a specific course's own rules are among the relevant sources for your situation. These are potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which one governs any case. Confirm applicability with the institution. Any dates are quoted from the sources, not a deadline calculation performed for you.
Turnitin's AI-detection score is off; AI-creation evidence still has a place in SFSU's process
SF State's Academic Technology office announced the discontinuation of Turnitin's AI-detection score (post dated May 1, 2024; retrieved Sep 1, 2026):
Source: Discontinuation of TurnItIn AI Detection Tool Availability — Academic Technology, also posted to Academic Technology Central (both dated May 1, 2024; retrieved Sep 1, 2026). So the feature ran roughly sixteen months, February 2023 to June 1, 2024, and its removal is dated to a CSU-managed licensing decision rather than to an SFSU statement against detection.
That discontinuation has not closed off AI-detection evidence from SFSU's process. The Office of Student Conduct's own academic-integrity guidance for faculty currently states (no on-page date displayed; retrieved Sep 1, 2026):
Source: Academic Integrity — Office of Student Conduct. This is the reason a completely empty detection inventory would misstate SFSU's process: even without a centrally provided, currently licensed AI-writing detector, the office that receives a case still names an "Academic Integrity report from TurnItIn or other source" as acceptable evidence that something was AI-created, and directs faculty to submit it. What "other source" means is not defined on this page.
Separately, SF State's teaching center counsels against relying on detection tools as a pedagogical matter. Its Teaching with Generative AI page (no on-page date displayed; retrieved Sep 1, 2026) is headed "Teach, don't police, academic integrity" and links research questioning detector reliability, including a piece titled "GPT Detectors Are Biased." Source: Teaching with Generative AI — CEETL. This is teaching-center guidance to instructors about how to design assignments, not a Student Conduct Office statement barring detector evidence from a case, and the page is recorded here with that distinction rather than as a disabling.
Named-vendor sweep across sfsu.edu came back empty beyond Turnitin: no page names Copyleaks, iThenticate, GPTZero, Originality.ai, Winston AI, Crossplag, ZeroGPT, Packback, Grammarly Authorship, Honorlock, Proctorio, Respondus or Examity. Category sweep: SFSU's Canvas learning-management system (migrated from iLearn campus-wide by Fall 2023) carries Turnitin's originality/plagiarism checking with no separate AI-writing tool documented; the Division of Graduate Studies & Career Development's own Thesis/Dissertation Guidelines name no plagiarism- or AI-checking step at all for thesis or dissertation submission (grad.sfsu.edu — Thesis Dissertation Guidelines, retrieved Sep 1, 2026); and no library or college research guide located in this review lists an AI-detection tool (the College of Liberal & Creative Arts' plagiarism-resources page discusses only traditional similarity checking and does not mention AI). One instructor-facing page, AI in the Classroom on SFSU's ai.sfsu.edu hub, sits behind SFSU's own single-sign-on and returned a login page rather than content to this review; nothing on this page is drawn from it.
What SFSU's own pages say about how cases proceed
- Who may be present
- "An Advisor may not speak on a Student's or Complainant's behalf" and is "limited to observing and consulting with, and providing support to" the student — Office of Student Conduct, Advisors and Attorneys, reproducing CSU Executive Order 1098, Article II (no on-page date displayed; retrieved Sep 1, 2026) · Advisors and Attorneys. On recording: "Written minutes and/or audio recordings of the hearing are kept" — OSC Resolution Process (no on-page date displayed; retrieved Sep 1, 2026) · OSC Resolution Process. Executive Order 1098 adds: "The recording is University Property. No other recording of the hearing is permitted" (revision effective Oct 6, 2023, per the CSU-campus-hosted copy read in this review; retrieved Sep 1, 2026) · Executive Order 1098 (PDF)
- What follows on the record
- "Suspension of one academic year or more, withdrawals in lieu of suspension, and withdrawals with pending misconduct investigations or disciplinary proceedings shall be entered on the Student's transcript permanently without exception; this requirement shall not be waived in connection with a resolution agreement." Expulsion, withdrawal in lieu of expulsion, and withdrawal with a pending investigation carry the identical permanent-notation rule. — Office of Student Conduct, Possible OSC Sanctions (no on-page date displayed; retrieved Sep 1, 2026) · Possible OSC Sanctions
The two questions an adviser raises first, answered from this institution's own published documents — or recorded as not stated in them.
From the Office of Student Conduct's own Resolution Process page (no on-page date displayed; retrieved Sep 1, 2026):
Source: OSC Resolution Process. The same page states the formal hearing is "a closed, confidential proceeding" before "[a] Hearing Officer appointed by the President of the University, or their designee," that "[t]he student's attendance is not mandatory," and that "formal rules of evidence (e.g. hearsay exclusion) do not apply." Read together with the Advisors and Attorneys page, an attorney may appear as an advisor only where SFSU's own campus directive permits it generally, or in two situations regardless of that directive — pending criminal charges arising from the same facts, or where expulsion is a possible sanction — and anyone bringing an attorney must notify the Student Conduct Administrator in writing "at least five (5) Working Days prior to the hearing."
On what happens to a report before it reaches OSC, the Academic Integrity page for faculty states the initial instructor communication to a student should include "the alleged violation," "[a]n opportunity for the student to provide a response," "[t]he grade assigned due to the violation," and "[a] statement that the alleged violation may be forwarded to the Office of Student Conduct." Source: Academic Integrity — Office of Student Conduct (retrieved Sep 1, 2026).
Not stated in the sources reviewed: any transcript notation, or lack of one, for sanctions short of suspension or expulsion (disciplinary probation, restitution, or educational/remedial sanctions carry no notation rule on the Possible OSC Sanctions page one way or the other), and any specific record-retention period for a disciplinary file. The Office of Student Conduct's FAQ directs students instead to SFSU's Student Privacy Rights Policy for questions about accessing their own discipline file, without stating a retention length; that policy was not itself located as a separate first-party page in this review. What any of this means for a particular case is for the institution and its process to determine.
Where the documents live
| Document | Location |
|---|---|
| Discontinuation of Turnitin's AI-detection score | at.sfsu.edu/news/discontinuation-turnitin-ai-detection-tool-availability (dated May 1, 2024; also mirrored at atcentral.sfsu.edu) |
| Academic Integrity guidance for faculty (AI evidence, reporting) | conduct.sfsu.edu/academic-integrity-faculty |
| OSC Resolution Process (preponderance standard, appeal finality, recording) | conduct.sfsu.edu/osc-resolution-process |
| Advisors and Attorneys (reproduces CSU EO 1098, Article II) | conduct.sfsu.edu/advisors-and-attorneys |
| Possible OSC Sanctions (transcript notation) | conduct.sfsu.edu/possible-osc-sanctions |
| Standards for Student Conduct (Title V, Article 2) | conduct.sfsu.edu/standards |
| CSU Executive Order 1098, Student Conduct Process (systemwide) | csuchico.edu — Executive Order 1098 (PDF) (revision effective Oct 6, 2023) |
| Teaching with Generative AI (detector-reliability caution, instructor-facing) | ceetl.sfsu.edu/teaching-generative-ai |
| AI for Students (student-facing AI-use policy) | ai.sfsu.edu/ai-students |
| Course Syllabus Policy #S24-257 and Resolution RS24-466 (Generative AI in Teaching and Learning) | senate.sfsu.edu/policies-resolutions |
| Thesis/Dissertation Guidelines (no plagiarism- or AI-checking step named) | grad.sfsu.edu/content/thesis-dissertation-guidelines |
| Office of Student Conduct | Student Services Building, Room 402 · 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132 · 415-338-2032 · conduct@sfsu.edu (from the office's own pages, retrieved Sep 1, 2026) · conduct.sfsu.edu |
| Care & Support Team (Dean of Students; "the campus does not have an official Ombudsperson for students") | dos.sfsu.edu/dean-call-program |
| University Ombuds (serves employees, not students) | sfsu.edu/university-ombuds |
Organizing your own drafts and records to bring to any of this: the records checklist. Capturing the pages above as they read today, and keeping your own dated record beside them: what to do with these sources.
Revision history of this page
2026-09-01 — Page created. All quotations captured first-party this date. Detection-inventory sweep: named vendors searched across sfsu.edu — Turnitin, Copyleaks, iThenticate, GPTZero, Originality.ai, Winston AI, Crossplag, ZeroGPT, Packback, Grammarly Authorship, Honorlock, Proctorio, Respondus, Examity — with only Turnitin returning a result. Category sweep: Canvas/iLearn integration (Turnitin originality checking only, no separate AI tool), the graduate thesis/dissertation pipeline (grad.sfsu.edu Thesis/Dissertation Guidelines name no plagiarism- or AI-checking step), IT/teaching-center pages (CEETL, Academic Technology), and one college's plagiarism-resources page (traditional similarity checking only, no AI mention); no library research guide on AI detectors was located for SFSU specifically. Turnitin's AI-detection score is confirmed discontinued campus-wide as of June 1, 2024 (Academic Technology news post and its Academic Technology Central mirror, both dated May 1, 2024) for a stated reason of CSU contract-renewal cost, not an institutional statement against detection — and the Office of Student Conduct's current academic-integrity guidance for faculty still names "an Academic Integrity report from TurnItIn or other source" as acceptable AI-creation evidence, so this was NOT treated as a step-2 disqualification: the inventory is not empty (a detector was deployed for roughly sixteen months and is documented with dates), and a live pathway for detector-type evidence into the conduct process remains on the institution's own current pages — the same reasoning applied to mtsu, wvu and umd. CEETL's "Teach, don't police, academic integrity" heading and its detector-bias citations are recorded as teaching-center pedagogical caution, with that provenance stated, not as a Student Conduct Office bar on such evidence. Process captured first-party from three Office of Student Conduct pages (Academic Integrity for faculty, OSC Resolution Process, Advisors and Attorneys, Possible OSC Sanctions) plus CSU Executive Order 1098 (revision effective Oct 6, 2023), read from the CSU Chico–hosted copy since the official calstate.policystat.com copy is not reliably plain-fetchable — the same substitution used on csuf, csulb and csun. SUBSTANTIVE FINDING: SFSU's own OSC Resolution Process page states outright that "The President's, or designees, decision is final and may not be appealed" for the standard (non-discrimination) track — no further appeal stage is documented for an academic-integrity case decided this way. OMBUDS TRAP: SFSU's University Ombuds page states it serves "all matters of concern or conflict among employees at SF State" — employees, not students — while the student-facing Care & Support Team (Dean of Students) states on its own page, in its own words, "the campus does not have an official Ombudsperson for students," and lists "Ombuds" as only one of four approaches (with case management, advocacy and referral) it takes toward students; it is not titled an ombuds office, is not described by SFSU as independent, confidential or neutral, and takes contact only through an online form. DELIBERATE OMISSIONS, do not chase again without a browser read: AI in the Classroom, the instructor-facing page on SFSU's ai.sfsu.edu hub, sits behind SFSU's Microsoft single-sign-on and returned a login screen to this review rather than content — a search-engine summary attributed to that page a sentence to the effect that SFSU provides no AI-text-detection tool and that instructors should not use AI tools such as ChatGPT to detect AI-generated text, but that sentence could not be traced to any publicly readable first-party SFSU page and is not used, quoted or relied on anywhere on this page; the Academic Technology Help Center's Turnitin-report article (athelp.sfsu.edu) is likewise behind SFSU single-sign-on and was not used. A 2020 Academic Senate item proposing to bar third-party remote exam proctoring had only a first reading recorded in the Sept 8, 2020 minutes located this session; it was not confirmed as adopted or as still current, so no proctoring-policy claim is made on this page in either direction, and the absence of any proctoring vendor is stated as an inventory result only. Nothing paraphrase-pending. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter. Internet Archive captures: to be added.
Spot an error or an outdated quotation? hello@gatheredwork.com — corrections are made on the record, in this log.