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The Australian competition watchdog has joined its UK counterpart to investigate plagiarism detection giant Turnitin’s plan to buy its last major competitor.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is examining whether the takeover of the Stockholm competitor Ouriginal by the Californian company will “significantly weaken” competition.
A questionnaire is aimed at Turnitin’s customers and competitors and examines how “closely†the two companies compete and what difficulties other players have in entering the anti-plagiarism software market. Subscribers are asked where else they can get such services and how difficult it would be to switch providers.
The document seeks feedback on how price, quality and service levels might affect as the merger progresses. She also asks about the provision of related educational software, such as: B. Learning management systems, by providers of plagiarism detection services.
Interested parties have until July 19th to register. The ACCC announced its findings on September 9th, when it will publish either its final decision or an “issue”.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, which was conducting a preliminary investigation into the proposed acquisition last month, will announce on July 29 whether it will conduct a follow-up investigation. Times higher education is aware that at least one other European regulator is considering an investigation.
When Turnitin announced its intention to purchase Ouriginal in March, the company admitted the offering is subject to regulatory approval. The deal may be under scrutiny in all of the 140+ countries the company operates in.
However, this is familiar territory for Turnitin, which has bought five other edtech companies in the past three years. His latest destination, Ouriginal, emerged just 10 months ago from the merger of two European text matching services.
Turnitin says it needs to grow to meet customer demand for “bundled solutions†that incorporate functions of academic integrity into broader suites of assessment, learning management and online teaching tools.
Valerie Schreiner, the company’s chief product and marketing officer in the United States, said Turnitin also faced competition as the services of the tech giants converged. Companies like Microsoft and Google have been “aggressively pursuing the education sector” by developing “learning management system-like skill sets,” while vendors like Blackboard and Canvas have improved their essay assessment skills.
Before UK and Australian regulators announced their investigations, Ms. Schreiner said the academic integrity landscape is “evolving†and “self-contained plagiarism prevention†“largely disappears†as essay factories become more technologically sophisticated. “You need … a big enough technology team that can invest in artificial intelligence,” she said.
Ms. Schreiner said she came to this conclusion as the executive director of Indianapolis-based plagiarism auditor VeriCite, which Turnitin took on in 2018. “The things that my clients brought to me were … things that I couldn’t solve” for you. I needed an AI team, and there was no way I could get that scale without joining a larger organization. “
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