High-School Students Take On Turnitin

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=1968

March 30, 2007

In part:

 

I've always wondering about this - but what does Turnitin do with your material? They don't give anyone your material - all they do is tell you if someone else submits words that match your words. All anyone else sees is the matched material.

It will be interesting to see how the courts deal with this.

I warn my students in the course syllabus that their work is subject to electronic checking.

Regards - Andy

 

Apparently they keep it for themselves. (It would not surprise me if they have a subsidiary in China that then sells term papers.)

I'm teaching an intro economics class this semester, so as an instructor, I have free access to turnitin. After reading some posts here I decided to give it a try. The first time I tried it, I wasn't sure it went through, so I submitted a different paper a second time. The two papers were for different classes, but on similar subjects. For both papers, it said 7% of it was identical to other papers and sources on the Internet.

Looking at the report, it counted common sentences such as "The capital of Florida is in Tallahassee" or "Have a nice day" as being written by others or on websites. I then noticed something strange, it was saying I plagiarized sentences from "a paper written by a student from the University of Florida." Upon closer evaluation, I noticed they were talking about my own paper that I submitted previously!

It seems the more a student's work is submitted, the higher "plagiarism score" he/she is likely to get, even though the work is all their own. An overzealous intructor who doesn't read the report carefully might over-react and start accusing people of plagerism.

I wonder if I can ask turnitin for my two papers back.

 

That is really interesting. I had no idea that it kept the submitted papers for future use. The more a student's work is submitted the higher the plagerism score is scary.

 

My first paper came back with a 20% plagerized score. Closer examination showed than 10% was from other papers submitted to the university with similar boiler plate cover sheets and the other 10% was for information (properly cited) that came from other dissertations.

Well, duh! Of course some of the words or phrases will match other papers.

Bill H

 

For all the criticism

Which is why instructors cannot rely on services like Turnitin as an infallible assessment. Like intuition and a skills set, it is only a tool to be used in the evaluation process.

Instructors do have the ability to remove quotes, bibliographies, and any specific content from analysis.

Yes, there are going to be college (or class) boilerplates that come up as plagiarized. Still, it was Turnitin that found a student tried to pass in a paper already submitted to an earlier section of my class.

Using that intuition tool, I have independently discovered student plagiarism. Still, given the time it takes to track down sources (note to students: your instructors have access to the same web sites you're copying from!), Turnitin offers me a wonderfully streamlined process.

 

Certainly agree that Turnitin is just another tool to help schools and professors. And they (Turnit in) did their job in identifying wholesale plagiarism.

 

Certainly agree that Turnitin is a tool to help schools and professors. And they (Turnitin) did their job in identifying wholesale plagiarism.

 

Really mixed feelings here

As a former freelance reporter, I am generally very protective of the First Amendment and copyright.

Still, how many student term papers have ever been published after submission?

I am certainly not crazy about the idea of a corporate entity amassing a vast library of student work. As someone semi-sarcastically suggested, just how difficult would it be for a Turnitin "subsidiary" to then sell those term papers to students creating its own intellectual "perpetual motion machine"?

But again, seriously, how many students really need to assert copyright over a 10th grade social studies paper? Even an undergraduate research paper? For crying out loud, actual professional researchers have for years signed over copyright for the privilege of having their studies published.

It's difficult to really know which side to take -- a principally sound, but practically frivolous lawsuit or with corporate greed capitalizing on the effort to undermine the human inclination to take a shortcut to success?

No one with a white hat here ...

 

The college I work for has a subscription to Turnitin.com. I did a little research and Turnitin.com keeps a permanent database of ALL papers submitted. There is no easy way to get these papers removed from the database. So, in fact, Turnitin.com is profiting from student papers submitted. This is disturbing.

I submitted an article from a reputable journal to "test it out" and it came back 20% plagiarized. It was then that I realized that article would be on the Turnitin.com servers forever! I submitted the article without the permission of the author and now it is there for critique. So, if the author should submit the paper to Turnitin.com it would come back 100% plagiarized since I submitted it first.

I think (and hope) that Turnitin.com will eventually be shut down. I think it is illegal to profit from academic COPYRIGHTED work.

 

I have been saying it and saying it. That company is making millions on everyone's written work.

Who are they to store YOUR written work in their database, then sell a subscription to YOUR school to use YOUR work yet again for the purpose of rechecking everyone else’s work. Whew!

All the works they have collected in their database from all the schools they service is pure theft. They have no rights to it whatsoever, NONE-

I hope the HS students win their case!

 

Plagiarism, Inc

I agree there is something inherently distasteful about a large corporate entity emassing others' work and using for their gain.

If the pending case is won and "turnitin goes down," yes there will be a victory for the concept of pure copyright. At the same time, there will be a major victory for wholesale plagiarism.

I'm sure you're all aware that with today's technology, a dishonest student needn't go further than the very keyboard s/he should be using to prepare a term paper to cut-and-paste or outright purchase that paper.

Yes, yes, I know buying and selling term papers has been around since the dawn of movable type.

Still, modern times have made plagiarism staggeringly simple. Of course, one always could manually copy text from any source. But, the argument could be made that the mere act of copying the words and handwriting them engaged some cognitive process that may have instilled some of the information in the student's mind. With electronic cut-and-paste, you don't even need to read the content.

Students today argue, with no sense of remorse or shame, that they believe cutting-and-pasting is conducting research and writing.

I know many supporting the case against Turnitin believe they are defending the greater good of preserving copyright and that is not wholly unreasonable. But I ask again -- how many student works did you publish?

 

A victory for wholesale plagiarism? Come on. Turnitin.com is a business, plain and simple, utilising copyrighted work stored on servers indefinitely for the purpose of generating revenue. Whatever other motives they indicate are pure nonsense. It is a corporation there to make money.

If someone submitted a copyrighted article I wrote to Turnitin.com without MY permission, it smacks of illegality. That article would be perpetually available for comparison while Turnitin.com generates revenue.

In my opinion, Turnitin.com is completely breaking copyright law and I hope the high school students win.

 

Read the whole message ...

And I haven't said any to contradict your assessment of Turnitin's motivation. I certainly do not believe their motives are altrustic in any way.

Still, you are ignoring the reality of the "copyrighted product" that is being bandied about -- student term papers.

Yes, I am fully aware that whenver someone produces an intellectual property to a tangible medium it is de facto protected by copyright.

But let's stop pretending that the students are being harmed in any than other a theoretical manner. Yes, Turnitin is profiting, no argument there. But, this isn't a record company getting a starry eyed performer to sign over all rights to what then becomes a platinum record. These are student term papers. They are not having profits from their creations taken from them.

The example of submitting a research article as a test of Turnitin is a red herring. Of course it came up as partially plagiarized -- because students had already submitted large parts of it in their own papers. Now that is copyright infringement!

And yes, if you remove a plagiarism detection tool like Turnitin, it is a victory for plagiarists. What's there to stop them now? Yes, I have found plagiarized student work without Turnitin, but it takes me a significant investment of time to do so. (Certainly a lot more of my time to FIND it than the student spent to COPY it!)

I have said it before, there is no one with a white hat here.
Please stop trying to make it sound like poor beleaguered students are having their wholesome creative products and residual profits stolen by The Man.

 

We can't pick and choose about what has more value as a copyrighted paper. In this case we are talking about high school students, but what about a M.Sc. or Ph.D. candidate in theoretical physics that wrote a paper that robustly challenges some of Einstein's work? What about a DBA candidate that develops a new model of economics that is a significant contribution to knowledge?

If their professors use Turnitin.com and submit their work, this COPYRIGHTED work is permanently placed on their servers. Who if going to guarantee the security of this work? Why should Turnitin.com benefit from this work?

We can't pick an choose... Any copyrighted work, even from a 15 year old has legal protection that Turnitin.com violates. We have to draw a line.

 

Thank you ... finally, someone who exhibits some common sense!

 

All or nothing ... ?

Absolutes do not equal common sense.
Perhaps neither of you have tried to correct a paper with the rampant cutting-and-pasting that is endemic in today's "learning" culture.

You might want to examine legislation, case law and precedent with regard to the legal rights of minors -- limitations have been set since the founding of the country. Reviewing the concepts of aggravation and mitigation might also inform your arguments.

I have said repeatedly there is no black-or-white answer here. Turnitin most certainly is flaunting the concept of copyright. There should be some middle ground.

But, you both have been perfectly clear that you prefer to protect the "rights" of students to violate the copyrights of others because the students' derivative copyright is sacrosanct.

Best of luck ...

 

Why are you placing "rights" in quotations? Rights are right. Period. Copyright is copyright. There is no fine line or distinction to be made. Turnitin.com is violating copyright and profiting from it.