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These may be very good test cases for the site.

4. Turnitin should only be used as a deterrent to plagiarism and not as a tool to catch cheaters (in fact, I believe the latter to be a misuse of our technology).

This statement seems to contradict itself, even if the first part were partially true. First, from the official website:

The information contained in the reports gives users the ability to determine for themselves the extent to which any given work is plagiarized or original.

As for the parenthesized part of #4: What other direct use is the service, than that it "gives users the ability to determine for themselves [...] plagiarized or original"? How can it be a deterrent unless: (a) the teacher is allowed to use the service to catch cheaters (in which case #4 is a lie); or (b) the teacher is not allowed to use the service to catch cheaters (in which case the only deterrent is the possibility that the teacher might be misusing the "service" anyway)? It seems that, logically, either the service is misrepresenting itself to the teacher, or the teacher is cheating by misrepresenting himself to the student.

7. Technology similar to Turnitin has been used in computer science departments (whether you know it or not) for over a decade.

I don't know whether this is considered relevant to Turnitin's business or not; however: #7 only means that, for 10 years, several teachers have been violating the trust of those who paid them more-or-less based on their trustworthiness as teachers. I doubt it seems ethical to most honest students to force them to contribute their work without authorization (or with manditory so-called "authorization") to a sting operation or similar uses without a court order. If the students were happy to submit their papers for comparison, that's one thing. But it seems like this business model depends on a huge number of students being either coerced by circumstances or silently exploited for uses they don't approve of.

Even if it's not Turnitin's job to treat students with respect, it's still the teachers' job, so one might wonder the integrity of any school participating in this without the informed and uncoerced consent of the non-cheating student authors. Just in case the list goes away later, here's a list of the schools participating in Turnitin (from Turnitit's own list on 2002-03-05):

The University of California System - Georgetown University - Cornell University - Duke University - The California Institute of Technology - Colgate University - Rice University - Boston University - Villanova University - The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities - Rochester Institute of Technology - Rutgers University - US Military Academy, West Point - Tulane University - Trinity College - Swarthmore College - Wesleyan University - The Citadel - The University of Western Ontario - The University of Leeds, UK - Manakau Institute of Technology, New Zealand

My personal opinion, which probably isn't worth anything: If the school you're applying to is on this list, ask them where they keep the consent forms for these submissions. If they tell you that they don't need permission-- well, then at least you know how you'll be treated. Not that Turnitin or any school would ever exploit your work for profit-making non-research purposes without compensating you beyond the education already pledged to you.

4. Turnitin should only be used as a deterrent to plagiarism and not as a tool to catch cheaters (in fact, I believe the latter to be a misuse of our technology).

This statement seems to contradict itself, even if the first part were partially true. First, from the official website:

The information contained in the reports gives users the ability to determine for themselves the extent to which any given work is plagiarized or original.

As for the parenthesized part of #4: What other direct use is the service, than that it "gives users the ability to determine for themselves [...] plagiarized or original"? How can it be a deterrent unless: (a) the teacher is allowed to use the service to catch cheaters (in which case #4 is a lie); or (b) the teacher is not allowed to use the service to catch cheaters (in which case the only deterrent is the possibility that the teacher might be misusing the "service" anyway)? It seems that, logically, either the service is misrepresenting itself to the teacher, or the teacher is cheating by misrepresenting himself to the student.

7. Technology similar to Turnitin has been used in computer science departments (whether you know it or not) for over a decade.

I don't know whether this is considered relevant to Turnitin's business or not; however: #7 only means that, for 10 years, several teachers have been violating the trust of those who paid them more-or-less based on their trustworthiness as teachers. I doubt it seems ethical to most honest students to force them to contribute their work without authorization (or with manditory so-called "authorization") to a sting operation or similar uses without a court order. If the students were happy to submit their papers for comparison, that's one thing. But it seems like this business model depends on a huge number of students being either coerced by circumstances or silently exploited for uses they don't approve of.

Even if it's not Turnitin's job to treat students with respect, it's still the teachers' job, so one might wonder the integrity of any school participating in this without the informed and uncoerced consent of the non-cheating student authors. Just in case the list goes away later, here's a list of the schools participating in Turnitin (from Turnitit's own list on 2002-03-05):

The University of California System - Georgetown University - Cornell University - Duke University - The California Institute of Technology - Colgate University - Rice University - Boston University - Villanova University - The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities - Rochester Institute of Technology - Rutgers University - US Military Academy, West Point - Tulane University - Trinity College - Swarthmore College - Wesleyan University - The Citadel - The University of Western Ontario - The University of Leeds, UK - Manakau Institute of Technology, New Zealand

My personal opinion, which probably isn't worth anything: If the school you're applying to is on this list, ask them where they keep the consent forms for these submissions. If they tell you that they don't need permission-- well, then at least you know how you'll be treated. Not that Turnitin or any school would ever exploit your work for profit-making non-research purposes without compensating you beyond the education already pledged to you.

As for the moderators to this post, you should be able to recognize someone puffing up his/her ego by sacrificing accuracy. It certainly does not warrant the scores I'm seeing.

For those who actually want to learn more about copyrights, fair use, and how they apply to you, start your research at the Stanford Fair Use website. The next logical step for US citizens would be to visit the US Library of Congress site on copyrights. Good luck!

It's not part of their TOS, but rather in the statement they make that all contents of the site belong to them in their User Agreement. Now, as far as I'm concerned, this is just a standard disclaimer for "don't steal stuff from our site", but there seems to be a great deal of concern as to whether this covers content to submitted to them as well, which nothing seems to clarify.

From their site :

Submitted papers are compared not only against the entire Internet, but also against our exclusive database of previously submitted student papers.


Therefore, the company keeps a copy of each paper submitted in the database, so that they can then use it in the future to determine if that paper has been plagiarized.

I have a real problem with this. That paper belongs to someone, and that person did not grant the rights to Turnitin to use it.

I can't find anywhere on the site this company says they own the works sent to them. Here are the terms of use All I can find is the usual "contents of this site are copyrighted", but that's the site, not the papers submitted.

The site description says that teachers can come to "their own turnitin.com Report Inbox" to review submitted assignments. So the reports become part of turnitin.com. From the usage policy: starting at the second paragraph:

PERSONAL AND NONCOMMERCIAL USE LIMITATION

This web site is for your personal and noncommercial use. You may not modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, software, products or services obtained from this web site. A user may not market, rent, lease, or re-license the licensed programs or services, or use the licensed programs or services for third party commercial use, commercial timesharing, or service bureau use.

COPYRIGHT AND TRADEMARK NOTICES:

All contents of this web site are: Copyright (c) 1998-2001 iParadigms, LLC, iParadigms Corporation and/or its suppliers.

chiefly for two reasons:

1. As mentioned in the story, turnitin.com acquires copyright of the content. I've read the license and nowhere do they guarantee that they shall not misuse content that's been uploaded. (Although they do prohibit any other person from using others' content... that'd be interesting actually, they'd be party to the plagiarizing!)

2. Part of the license also says that the content can be used by the US Government, particularly by a defense related agency. That only means, that the CIA could come snooping in on innocuous content and the next thing you know, they'd start suspecting us of treason and subterfuge.

Surely, any university worth its name in salt can come up with some kind of a plagiarism-detecting software system. Or better still... maybe someone could come up with an Open Source version of turnitin.com's software. What say guys?

Where, exactly, in the User Agreement does it say that the company gets the papers? - Emcron

If you read their terms of use it appears that students papers become the property of Turnitin.com.