Hello Mr. Kadie, I am a student member of the EFF and would love for you to comment on this:
Recently for my Interface Design class I was *required* to submit my research paper to http://www.turnitin.com, a "service" for professors to easily determine if their students have plagiarised.
There is no written university policy on this, simply a mandate by a few professors, and I have a few concerns.
First, iParadigms is not a non-profit educational institution, it is a for-profit external business that the university is relying on....sooooo:
In the fine print of turnitin's policies, it is clear that their service is provided "as is." Now, as a student, my paper and references certainly are not as is - How can I be sure that whatever algorithms they're using won't falsely link my work to another document - and if so, where does the liability lie? (as stated, no university policy)
Second, they are archiving all of the work that we submit to be checked against future submissions. So now, students are beyond worrying about loss of work to the University, we've lost our work to an external business that we were FORCED to use!
Finally, in regard to this archive that iParadigms is collecting, what is happening with this giant archive? What happens if a giant conglemerate (eg. Microsoft) buys out iParadigms, who posesses our work then?
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Hello Mr. Kadie, I am a student member of the EFF and would love for you to comment on this:
Recently for my Interface Design class I was *required* to submit my research paper to http://www.turnitin.com, a "service" for professors to easily determine if their students have plagiarised.
There is no written university policy on this, simply a mandate by a few professors, and I have a few concerns.
First, iParadigms is not a non-profit educational institution, it is a for-profit external business that the university is relying on....sooooo:
In the fine print of turnitin's policies, it is clear that their service is provided "as is." Now, as a student, my paper and references certainly are not as is - How can I be sure that whatever algorithms they're using won't falsely link my work to another document - and if so, where does the liability lie? (as stated, no university policy)
Second, they are archiving all of the work that we submit to be checked against future submissions. So now, students are beyond worrying about loss of work to the University, we've lost our work to an external business that we were FORCED to use!
Finally, in regard to this archive that iParadigms is collecting, what is happening with this giant archive? What happens if a giant conglemerate (eg. Microsoft) buys out iParadigms, who posesses our work then?
Thank you very much!