How to read a student's process record

The short answer

Read a process record as a witness statement with a mechanical check attached — not as a detector score. It can show whether a named student worked in the document, whether a disputed passage arrived as a paste or as typed edits, and whether the record still matches its seal. It cannot show intent, and a student who has no record is not thereby guilty.

The UK's Office of the Independent Adjudicator has been plain that AI-related misconduct cases fail when the provider treats a tool's output as the finding. Turnitin tells institutions the same thing about its own detector: the score is not, by itself, the decision. A process record is a different kind of input. Use it for the questions it can actually answer.

Questions the record can answer

Ask these, in this order, and stop when the record runs out.

1. Is this the record the student means? Open the link or check the file yourself at the public verify page. Do not accept a screenshot of a result. A pass means the file is the sealed one. The detail of what that pass does and does not say is in what checking a seal actually shows.
2. Who attests? A record tied to a named person who consented to recording is attributable. An anonymous log, or a history on a shared login, is weaker.
3. What happened to the disputed passage? Look for whether it grew through edits or arrived in one insertion. "Arrived in one insertion" means it was not typed there character by character. It does not mean the source was a model. It might be the student's own notes, a quotation, or text from elsewhere.
4. Does the shape of the work match the time? A document that grows across sessions is corroboration of a process. It is still corroboration, not a mind-reading. Someone can transcribe. The ceiling of ordinary version history — including the fact that it can be simulated — is in Google Docs version history as proof.

If the seal fails, you do not have this record. Ask for the original link or the sealed file. A failed check on a later export is not a finding of misconduct.

Questions the record must not be asked

• "Does this prove they never used AI?" No. The list of negatives a record cannot cover is in what a writing record cannot prove.
• "They have no record, so the detector score stands." No. Recording is opt-in. Absence is a blank, and a blank is not evidence. The student still has drafts, history, and the chance to explain the work. How to hold that conversation without turning it into an interrogation is in how to talk to a student about suspected AI use.
• "Can the LMS detector settle it?" Canvas and similar tools are not a finding either. What they do and do not scan is in does Canvas detect AI?.

How to weigh it next to everything else

Put the record in the same stack as the other process evidence, not above the policy:

• A detector score, if you have one, is a reason to look. It is not the finding.
• Drafts, notes, and version history sit beside the sealed record. They often cover the days before the student turned recording on.
• A conversation about the work still matters. A record shows a process on the page. A conversation shows whether that process is in the student's head. Offer it; do not treat nerves as guilt.

The wider set of things to do instead of trusting a detector is in alternatives to AI detectors.

What to write down

In the decision note, quote the check you ran and the narrow fact it supports. "The sealed record verifies, and the disputed paragraph was typed across the recorded session" is a fact. "The seal proves the student did not use AI" is not. "The student has no Authmarks record" is a fact about tooling, not a fact about the essay.

The institution still carries the burden. The record can carry some of the weight. It does not carry the finding by itself.