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Student Fights University Over Plagiarism-Detector
(Maly) writes "CBC is reporting that MCGill University has lost a fight to have students first turn papers over to an anti-cheating website before handing them in to professors. The student refused to hand in three assignments to the service, received a zero on those assignments, then fought the ruling. The story doesn't have many specifics, such as the venue of the fight (court or some internal university tribunal), but it is an interesting case. As a recent graduate of the social sciences, I find that practice appalling. The student is right to refuse, as he gets no compensation from the service for making money off his original work (assuming it was original!!). Although I don't like the idea, and I'm glad I never went through it, I suppose its analogue would be mandatory drug tests in sports."
Technology is seen as infallible by a great many people - suppose a paper accidentally failed the pagiarism test - is there any way to appeal? who are you going to beleive, some snot-nosed plagiarising punk or a godlike magical website?
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
On the other hand if you're talking about plagiarism of published works, then yes, tutors should be able to spot this. But I think we're talking about plagiarism of course essays rather than published papers. Of course, examination systems have laways got round this problem quite simply.
If the intent is to protect against cheaters, then the teachers should submit the papers to the service for verification. The student should not have to be the one who is being required to turn in their papers to a service.
It is a matter of being treated like a criminal first.
The other problem would be false positives when people write with similar styles in two different parts of the nation/world. Given enough "samples" in their filter, the accuracey drops because you now have a much higher likelihood of turning up a match.
I Agree that plagiarizing work is wrong. But I do not agree that everyone should be treated like a cheater just because some in the student body are.
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See there is a big difference between what you are doing and what the service is doing. You wrote a script to help you do your job. The only money you make off of it is your salary. The papers you get might be stored on your harddisk for future referance and checking but your not effectively using them as any sort of asset. If you were out there running ads "Over 5000 papers to varify against" and selling the service then it could be argued that you were using student papers to make money, becase the papers would be assets to your business. There is nothing wrong with automaticly checking for plagiarism there is something worng with you makeing money off work I did without my consent.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Your implied economic argument is too simplistic. Say, for the sake of argument, that you are a student at this university, and that you are a plagiarist. The university is also protecting its other students (and itself) from the results of your cheating by trying to determine wheter or not you have committed plagiarism. If they fail to do so, you could well end up out in the real world having faked your way through part or all of your university education. This devalues the degree you and your classmates received, which harms them. It also harms the reputation university in question, so they are unable to attract the caliber of students they did in the past.
And, contrary to what you might think, it does not take a huge public scandal for this sort of devaluing to occur. I work for a large investment bank and there are several schools that my fellow development managers and I simply discount when screening new hires straight out of college, simply based on experiences we have collectively had in the past with other students from those schools.
As a paying customer, you should be glad your school cares as much as this one (if your school does, and if you are in school). Your dissatisfaction might be better focused on the fact that students are being asked to hand over original works to a for-profit institution with no compensation. That was the crux of the student's complaint in the article as well.
Because we all know that software to recognize patterns in text is perfect. That's why no one ever gets spam anymore!
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Speaking as a former assistant professor, I have no patience at all with past colleagues who complain about their students cheating. It is an easy matter to have students do their assignments incrementally, starting with bibliographical reports and oral presentations (with questions), where cheating is much more difficult, before handing in the written paper on the same topic.
If professors keep on assigning the same trite, tired topics year after year instead of taking the time to develop new ones, and simply rubber-stamp grades onto half-read papers instead of monitoring each student's progress, they are cheating as much as the students (and yes, I've taught classes with more than 100 students).