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Turnitin.com - Placebo for Plagiarism or Worse?

Posted by Cliff on from the why-don't-corps-understand-the-concept-of-personal-IP? dept.

Foo Shackelford asks: "At my University I have noticed a disturbing trend and was wondering if there are any other students, faculty, or staff who have concerns about the web based anti-plagiarism service called Turnitin.com? Turtnitin.com is supposed to be is a placebo for plagiarism where students submit papers for analysis. While plagiarism is by all accounts bad and should not be tolerated, the implementation of Turnitin.com on University campuses leaves many questions unanswered. If you read their terms of use it appears that students papers become the property of Turnitin.com. Turnitin.com keeps a copy of every student paper submitted and students have no choice in this matter. Where are the rights of the student? Also, there appears to be no warrantee to the accuracy of the service. Where does this leave the student who is accused of plagiarism? It would be nice for those who decide to implement the usage of services like these within their institutions to look beyond the placebo and consider issues of privacy, intellectual property, and most of all trust relationship that they hold with their students. Any thoughts on this?" We last touched on a related issue in this article on students GPLing their work. Might such a solution work here in terms of protecting a student's right to use any work that they submit to other sites/services that have implicit contracts like the one described here for Turnitin.Com?

11 of 393 comments (clear)

  1. Sweet! by FortKnox · · Score: 2, Funny

    I'm turning in a paper that was blatantly plagiarised so I can get my sugar pill!

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    Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
  2. From my own experience... by turbine216 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can tell you that if turnitin.com is anything like slashdot, they'll just mod the paper into oblivion if it doesn't jive with the editors' opinions. But hey, what do I know?

  3. GPL'd papers .... obvious plagarism ..... by taniwha · · Score: 5, Funny

    there's that same big block of legaese at the beginning that will trigger the filter every time :-)

  4. Canned response to English instructor: by cscx · · Score: 5, Funny

    Plagarism? That's preposturous! That paper was licensed under the GPL! I had every right to copy it and modify a few words here and there, as long as I made the paper available to others...

  5. Big deal by nagora · · Score: 2, Funny
    Of course they keep a copy of every paper, that's how they check for plagarism! What did you think they did use the md5 hash cross-indexed with a Tarot reading?

    TWW

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    "Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
  6. The Closed Source Paper by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny
    "I can't read your term paper, son."

    "That's right, it's closed source and encrypted, but you can ask me questions about it, which I may or may not answer."

    "Umm.."

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    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  7. A placebo? by Hangman+Jim+99 · · Score: 2, Funny

    You mean it doesn't actually check anything, it just makes you think it has?

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    --- I hate my sig
  8. One way to avoid accusations of plagiarism... by FFFish · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...misspell your BigWords. Pretty darn tough to get caught if, for instance, you use "placebo" when you really mean "panacea."

    I know, there's a risk the professor might actually read your paper and discover that you're illiterate, but it's a pretty slim risk...

    ...'cause most professors just toss the papers down a staircase, and grade 'em based on distance.

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    Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
  9. The other side of the coin... by CaffeineAddict2001 · · Score: 2, Funny

    You can take plagerized texts, run it through this software and then keep tweeking it until it no longer sets off the filter alarm.

  10. output of MSFT source code turitin run :-) by peter303 · · Score: 3, Funny

    17% match with CP/M
    23% match with BSD
    32% match with Apple OS
    34% match with DEC VMS
    16% match with Borland

    Summary:
    112% matches with other source bases (indicates
    mutual plagarism)
    0% original code

  11. Re:No, really, what are they talking about? by Monkey+Troll · · Score: 3, Funny
    It does NOT matter that the story was factually incorrect, and very poorly written. Slashdot only has two requirements for a story to get on the front page:
    1. Will this story generate lots of responses, and,
    2. uhh...
    Slashdot only has one requirement for a story to get on the front page. -- Slashdot. The Placebo for technology journalism.