University Authorship Verification Software Procurement Checklist and RFP Questions

Short answer: University procurement teams should evaluate authorship verification software across evidence integrity, ordinary teaching workflows, privacy and accessibility, interoperability, human review, pricing and vendor exit. A vendor demonstration should show not only a successful writing session, but also consent refusal, unrecorded text, interrupted capture and the ability to review or export records after the assignment.

Use this checklist as the foundation of an RFI, RFP or 30-day pilot. It is designed for a product category that includes AI-text detectors, writing-process replay, editor history, and sealed writing-provenance records. Not every vendor claims to offer all of those functions: score only the capabilities your university actually needs.

Disclosure: AuthMarks publishes this checklist and offers writing-provenance software. This is a procurement aid, not independent certification of any vendor or legal advice.

For a category overview before writing your RFP, use the student authorship verification software buyer's guide.

First: define what your university wants to establish

A surprisingly large procurement mistake is writing an RFP for "AI cheating detection" when the actual requirement is defensible evidence about the writing process.

Use these questions to agree on scope:

• Is the institution trying to identify high-risk submissions, document how text was produced, corroborate an inquiry, or preserve a verifiable record for later review?
• Must a student work inside a particular editor, or can the tool operate with existing Google Docs or Microsoft Word workflows?
• Is participation optional, required in selected assessments, or subject to accommodations?
• Does the university need a result available inside its LMS, a portable evidence artifact, or both?
• Which person has authority to review evidence, and what safeguards apply before an academic-integrity referral?

Do not use "100% AI proof" or "guaranteed cheating prevention" as procurement requirements. Such language asks a vendor to promise more than process evidence alone can establish.

Evidence and provenance — 10 questions

Ask each vendor to demonstrate, not merely assert:

1. What precise observation does a product record—final text, snapshots, edit events, typing/paste categories, or something else?
2. Does recording begin only with appropriate notice and consent? Can users pause it?
3. How does the product display material written before recording began or while capture was inactive?
4. Can an instructor distinguish a legitimate pasted quotation from an unexplained pasted block without an automatic misconduct label?
5. What does the evidence show about revision, deletion and replacement?
6. What does a completed record claim about authorship, as distinct from association with a signed-in account?
7. Are there named human reviews or attestations? What exactly does the attestor affirm?
8. Does the vendor provide an independent integrity check? If so, what exact artifact does that check cover?
9. Can an authorized reviewer export the record or a meaningful summary outside the vendor dashboard?
10. Which inferences does the vendor explicitly prohibit, including disciplinary decisions based solely on a score or seal?

A tamper-evident signature may show a file has not changed since sealing. It does not by itself establish that the named account holder physically wrote every sentence or that their declared use of AI was truthful.

LMS and identity integration — 8 questions

1. Does the tool use LTI 1.3, and which LTI Advantage services does it implement in production?
2. Is the vendor 1EdTech certified for the specific tool and version, or is it only claiming conformance? Request a directory listing if certification is asserted.
3. Can an instructor link an assignment from a normal course workflow? Show the actual student launch.
4. Does the gradebook receive a link, completion status or numerical score? Which fields can be disabled?
5. What user identity and roles are shared at launch? Can data sharing be minimized?
6. Does tool registration require a vendor-side activation, institution-side configuration, or both?
7. What does a failed login, missing deployment or expired integration look like to a teacher and student?
8. Can the product be tested in a staging or sandbox course before broad rollout?

Why the distinction matters: 1EdTech explains that LTI 1.3 provides a security foundation. Deep Linking, Names and Role Provisioning, and Assignment and Grade Services are separate services in the LTI Advantage family. An "LTI 1.3 compatible" label does not automatically establish that every Advantage feature is live. Its procurement guidance specifically recommends that institutions distinguish certified functionality from a vendor's general conformance claim.

Privacy, retention and accessibility — 10 questions

1. Which personal data, document text, event records and optional audio are processed?
2. What happens to information generated during a pause or in a session without consent?
3. Which administrators, instructors, reviewers and vendor staff can access evidence?
4. Is there a configurable retention schedule for unsealed sessions, sealed records and backups?
5. Where is data hosted, and what contractual processing/subprocessor terms are available?
6. Does the institution receive appropriate data protection documentation, security materials and incident notification commitments?
7. Can the institution export necessary evidence and request deletion where permitted by its rules?
8. How does the system accommodate assistive technology, speech input, offline drafting and supported-device differences?
9. What alternative workflow is available when a student cannot or will not record, consistent with institutional policy?
10. Can the student inspect the material before sharing, correct factual inaccuracies, and respond to an instructor's concern?

The answer to a privacy question may vary by country and institution; procurement teams should assess applicable law and local policy rather than accepting a universal compliance badge.

Fair review and instructional fit — 7 questions

• Does the product describe unknown or missing process evidence as unknown, rather than automatically dishonest?
• Can faculty distinguish a recorded event from an inference about the student's intention?
• Is a student explanation part of the standard review process?
• Does the tool support permitted AI assistance without treating all AI use as prohibited?
• How much time does a routine evidence review actually take?
• Can the institution limit escalated review to authorized roles, with an audit trail?
• What teaching and student-support materials will be supplied?

These questions matter because writing-process records are contextual evidence. A factual label such as "pasted" may be accurate and still fully consistent with an assignment's rules.

Commercial and operational checks — 7 questions

1. What is the licence unit: institution, active learner, seat, course, or submission?
2. What is included in the base price and what requires an additional licence or review tier?
3. Who performs implementation and what support response times are contracted?
4. How are data retention, storage growth and evidence exports priced?
5. Which planned features are contractually committed versus only shown on a roadmap?
6. What are the renewal, suspension, termination and data-export terms?
7. Can existing sealed artifacts still be checked after a school stops paying, and under what conditions?

See the university software pricing guide for a full cost model.

A defensible vendor demo script

Ask every shortlisted vendor to run the same five scenarios using a test course and synthetic document:

Scenario	Demonstration required	What to record
Routine draft	Write, revise, delete, submit	Evidence clarity and staff time
Legitimate paste	Insert cited text and commentary	Does the reviewer understand context?
Consent gap	Begin after writing, then pause	Are unobserved regions honestly displayed?
Controlled review	Student shares with instructor	Role, permissions, audit and student notice
Record export	Export and independently open/check	Does integrity verification work as described?

Also ask for a failed LTI launch and a support contact. The speed at which a vendor explains a failure is often more revealing than a polished successful demo.

Scorecard: combine hard gates with weighted fit

Suggested weighting for a university running a broad pilot (adapt before sending the RFP):

Domain	Suggested weight
Evidence and limitations	25%
Privacy, governance and accessibility	25%
Teaching and student experience	20%
LMS interoperability	15%
Total cost and support	15%
Total	100%

Score each area from 1 to 5, but treat critical data protection, accessibility or institutional-policy requirements as pass/fail gates, not points that can be offset by lower pricing.

For every vendor row, retain a link to evidence (demo recording, documentation, contract clause, reference, or directly observed test). Mark unanswered questions as not verified, not as pass.

Suggested RFP wording

The institution seeks a solution that preserves or presents interpretable evidence of student writing processes, subject to institution-approved consent, accessibility and data handling requirements. Vendors must identify the exact claims their outputs support and the limitations of those claims. Any LTI 1.3 or LTI Advantage certification must be specified by version and independently verifiable where claimed. The institution requires a demonstration covering ordinary writing, imported material, unobserved writing intervals, authorized reviewer access, and record export or verification. No automated output will constitute a conclusive academic-misconduct finding.

The wording above is a sample procurement clause, not formal legal drafting. Institutions should adapt it with their legal, academic-integrity and procurement teams.

Where AuthMarks fits into the checklist

The AuthMarks institutional documentation describes consent-based recording, named attestation, a labelled writing history, a sealed file, and review under institutional policy. Its LTI page publishes technical integration and activation steps for Canvas, Blackboard and several other LMSs.

Those are documented product assertions, not substitutes for a university's independent pilot. During evaluation, test the current release and any plan-specific controls. Do not assume a public LTI 1.3 claim equals 1EdTech certification; request certification evidence separately if your procurement requires it.

Next action: Use the 30-day pilot framework to turn the RFP into a real test. For an AuthMarks product demo and institution-specific quote, contact sales@authmarks.com or visit AuthMarks for institutions.

Related: Authorship verification software buyer's guide · Pricing and total-cost guide · 30-day pilot playbook · Canvas integration guide · Blackboard integration guide