University of Southern Mississippi.
- Detection status
- AI-detection software confirmed available to instructors; no vendor named. Turnitin confirmed separately for plagiarism/originality checking, including on graduate theses and dissertations
- Office in these sources
- Office of Academic Integrity · 601.266.6845 · integrity@usm.edu (no physical address published)
- Ombuds or advocacy office
- None located on the institution's own pages in this review. USM's Faculty Ombud serves faculty only. The Student Ombudsman Services name found elsewhere on the web now redirects to the Dean of Students' Academic Notification page, which verifies excused absences such as "Illness or death of a family member or friend" and "Court Subpoenas and/or Jury Duty" and names no role in academic-integrity cases
- Sources last checked
- Sep 29, 2026
Reproduced from the institution's own pages quoted below — potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which one governs any case.
USM's published sources on AI detection and academic integrity, quoted and linked below. These are potentially relevant official sources, not a determination of which one governs any case — course syllabi and department rules may also apply, and USM's own pages state that AI-use rules vary by course and instructor. Confirm applicability with the institution. Any dates are quoted from the sources, not a deadline calculation performed for you.
AI-detection software is documented as available to instructors, unnamed
Named-vendor sweep of usm.edu found no specific AI-writing-detection product named by USM. Two of USM's own pages state plainly that instructors have AI-detection software available and may use it, without naming which product (Student Help page, Last Updated 5/27/25; retrieved Sep 29, 2026):
Source: Artificial Intelligence — Student Help. The Office of the Provost's own AI page (Last Updated 9/28/26; retrieved Sep 29, 2026) states the same authority from the instructor's side, in a syllabus option that prohibits generative AI on an assignment:
Source: Artificial Intelligence — Office of the Provost. Neither page names a vendor or states how the software's output is weighed against other evidence.
Category sweep of the Graduate School's own thesis/dissertation approval requirements found Turnitin confirmed by name, but scoped to plagiarism checking rather than AI-writing detection (form retrieved Sep 29, 2026):
Source: Thesis/Dissertation/Doctoral Project Document Approval — Graduate School. This is an originality/plagiarism check, not a stated AI-content screen; it is recorded here because it is the only named-vendor confirmation found, not as evidence that Turnitin is the "AI detection software" the Student Help and Provost pages describe.
What USM's own pages say about how cases proceed
- Who may be present
- At the facilitation meeting: "Additional witnesses, like Teaching Assistants or School Directors, may attend the facilitation meeting to provide insight, but they may only attend if they have direct knowledge of the exact violation being facilitated. […] Character witnesses or any guest are not permitted at a facilitation." At a later appeal hearing the rule differs: "If a student has advisors or legal counsel, they may also be present at the hearing… but they may not speak on the student's behalf or verbally participate." — Facilitation Meeting Guidelines and Appeal Hearing Guidelines, Office of Academic Integrity (no on-page dates; retrieved Sep 29, 2026). Recording is not addressed either way at either stage.
- What follows on the record
- "Everyone who sees your transcript will see the notation of 'failure due to academic misconduct,' which could shape how you are seen by future employers or schools." "Only a XF will show as a failing grade due to academic misconduct on your transcript." — FAQ for Students, Office of Academic Integrity (no on-page date; retrieved Sep 29, 2026).
The two questions an adviser raises first, answered from this institution's own published documents — or recorded as not stated in them.
From the Academic Integrity Process and FAQ for Students pages (Office of Academic Integrity; no on-page dates; retrieved Sep 29, 2026):
Sources: Academic Integrity Process, Appeal Hearing Guidelines, and FAQ for Students. Violations are handled at one of three levels; only Level II and III violations require a facilitation meeting, and Level I violations may instead be closed by a signed Faculty Resolution Form between the instructor and student. The Appeal Hearing Guidelines add: "The determination of the Academic Integrity Council is final and may only be appealed to the Office of the Provost on procedural grounds. The decision may not be appealed on substantive grounds." What these quotations mean for any particular case is for the institution and its process to determine; they are reproduced so you can read the originals in context.
Where the documents live
| Document | Location |
|---|---|
| Artificial Intelligence (Student Help; AI-detection availability) | usm.edu — Artificial Intelligence, Student Help (Last Updated 5/27/25) |
| Artificial Intelligence (Office of the Provost; syllabus options) | usm.edu — Artificial Intelligence, Provost (Last Updated 9/28/26) |
| Thesis/Dissertation/Doctoral Project Document Approval (Turnitin/originality requirement) | usm.edu — Graduate School approval form |
| Academic Integrity (office landing page, reporting) | usm.edu — Academic Integrity |
| Academic Integrity Process (violation levels, facilitation, appeal steps) | usm.edu — Academic Integrity Process |
| Facilitation Meeting Guidelines (who may be present) | usm.edu — Facilitation Meeting Guidelines |
| Appeal Hearing Guidelines (evidentiary standard, advisors/counsel, final-appeal grounds) | usm.edu — Appeal Hearing Guidelines |
| FAQ for Students (transcript notation, XF removal) | usm.edu — FAQ for Students |
| About Us (office staff and contact) | usm.edu — About Us, Academic Integrity |
| Academic Notification (successor to the Student Ombudsman Services name; absence verification only) | usm.edu — Academic Notification, Dean of Students |
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
2026-09-29 — Page created. Automated scheduled pass; no human review is claimed. Named-vendor sweep (Turnitin, Turnitin AI writing indicator, SimCheck, Originality, Copyleaks, iThenticate, GPTZero, Originality.ai, Winston AI, Crossplag, ZeroGPT, Packback, Grammarly Authorship, Honorlock, Proctorio, Respondus, Examity) and category sweep (Student Help, Office of the Provost, Graduate School thesis-approval requirements, Office of Academic Integrity's process/facilitation/appeal/FAQ pages) found no named AI-writing-detection vendor, but two first-party pages state plainly that instructors have unnamed "AI detection software" available and may use it. Turnitin is separately confirmed by name for plagiarism/originality checking on graduate theses and dissertations, not for AI-content detection. FALSE LEAD CAUGHT BEFORE PUBLICATION: a web search's own AI-generated summary asserted the Graduate School "requires all theses and dissertations to be run through software which detects the use of AI"; the underlying approval-form PDF was read directly and states only an originality-score/plagiarism check through Turnitin "or other originality software" — nothing about AI-generated content. The false claim is not used anywhere on the page. A second search-summary error was also caught: the Office of Academic Integrity's email, garbled by an automated summary into "integrityFREEMississippi." TOOLING NOTE: usm.edu (an OU Campus site) obfuscates its mailto links with a non-standard, site-specific reversal cipher — not the Cloudflare data-cfemail scheme this repo's capture.py already decodes — so a plain curl fetch of the About Us page renders the same "integrityFREEMississippi" placeholder text rather than the address. capture.py has no decoder for this scheme; confirmed by inspecting the page's own raw markup, where the link's placeholder text and a set of data attributes spell out the cipher in reversed fragments. The address was confirmed as integrity@usm.edu by a genuine browser read, which executes the page's own JavaScript and renders it correctly; that browser-read text was preserved at tools/supplied/usm-source9.txt (the About Us page only) and picked up by capture.py per this repo's supplied-source convention, rather than left only in this session. First-party material captured: both AI pages (Student Help, Provost), the Graduate School approval form, and five Office of Academic Integrity pages (landing, process, facilitation guidelines, appeal guidelines, FAQ). OMBUDS/ADVOCACY CHECKED, NONE FOUND: USM's "Faculty Ombud" serves roughly 1,000 academic staff and reports to the President — faculty-only, not substituted here. The "Student Ombudsman Services" name now redirects to the Dean of Students' "Academic Notification" page, which verifies documented excused absences (illness, court subpoena, military orders, and similar) and states no role in academic-integrity matters; not presented as an advocate for a student facing an allegation. Recording of a facilitation meeting or appeal hearing is not addressed either way in any source reviewed. Nothing paraphrase-pending. Archive captures pending. Reviewer: Carrie Schluter (review confirmed 2026-09-29).
2026-10-06 — Internet Archive captures requested by automated capture passes between 2026-09-29 and 2026-09-30 and recorded this date; no human review is claimed for this entry. No quotation, date, finding or link above was changed by it. Each capture below was requested through Save Page Now and then confirmed to play back. Captures added: usm.edu — About Us, Academic Integrity → https://web.archive.org/web/20260929114827/https://www.usm.edu/academic-integrity/about-us.php; Appeal Hearing Guidelines → https://web.archive.org/web/20260929114900/https://www.usm.edu/academic-integrity/appeal-hearing-guidelines.php; usm.edu — Facilitation Meeting Guidelines → https://web.archive.org/web/20260929114932/https://www.usm.edu/academic-integrity/facilitation-meeting-guidelines.php; FAQ for Students → https://web.archive.org/web/20260929115011/https://www.usm.edu/academic-integrity/faq.php; usm.edu — Academic Integrity → https://web.archive.org/web/20260929115046/https://www.usm.edu/academic-integrity/index.php; Academic Integrity Process → https://web.archive.org/web/20260929115119/https://www.usm.edu/academic-integrity/process.php; usm.edu — Academic Notification, Dean of Students → https://web.archive.org/web/20260929115151/https://www.usm.edu/dean-students/academic-notification.php; Thesis/Dissertation/Doctoral Project Document Approval — Graduate School → https://web.archive.org/web/20260929115221/https://www.usm.edu/graduate-school/graduate-school-attachments/approval-form-august-2020.pdf; Artificial Intelligence — Student Help → https://web.archive.org/web/20260930105523/https://www.usm.edu/student-help/artificial-intelligence.php.
Spot an error or an outdated quotation? hello@gatheredwork.com — corrections are made on the record, in this log.