<p>Isn't it the teacher's job to read the student's papers and decide whether the student has plagiarized, instead of outsourcing it to turnitin? If teachers read the students' papers, he or she would be able to see if the voice or the diction was consistent.</p>
<p>"In response to the McLean/Turnitin lawsuit, we've been disturbed by many professors' opinion that students' papers are so utterly void of intelligence and innovative ideas that their intellectual property does not warrant or deserve copyright protection. For the sake of debate, let's presume that a certain percentage of student essays are terrible, in every aspect. What if that type of essay is exactly what someone WANTS to buy? What if an author decides to publish a new book entitled, 'The Worst Student Essays Ever Written,' and the author wants to buy hundreds of actual, 'terrible' essays written by students in all states--including Virginia--to include in the book. This could mean substantial royalties for the student authors. However, due to numerous legal restrictions, the author can pay students for their essays ONLY if the essays are not already stored/published/indexed in any database. Conclusion: This is merely one scenario in which Turnitin severely diminishes or completely eliminates the marketability of students' intellectual property." (<a href="http://www.essayfraud.org%5B/url%5D">http://www.essayfraud.org</a>)</p>
<p>I think the assertion that students are in any way harmed by Turnitin is very dubious. </p>
<p>I know this forum is blessed by the participation of many parents who are lawyers, and I would love to hear from them what they think about any aspects of the pleadings in this case.</p>
<p>Slightly different line of questioning here but there seem to be some knowledgeble people here that may be able to answer something for me. My D recently did a research paper at school on a subject she is really interested in. Her school uses Turnitin (or something like it). There is a scholarship opportunity (nothing to do with the school) that requires an essay on the same subject and as she has spent 5 months researching it she would like to use parts of her paper in the scholarship essay (the essay is much shorter that the paper). Could she run into problems? Can you plagiarise yourself? Am I being paranoid?</p>
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Isn't it the teacher's job to read the student's papers and decide whether the student has plagiarized, instead of outsourcing it to turnitin? If teachers read the students' papers, he or she would be able to see if the voice or the diction was consistent.
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<p>I think there's been a move towards "hard evidence" and I've heard teachers say as much. Even if they can tell that a student plagiarized, without a source, it can be difficult to take any action, especially today when the stakes for cheating or plagiarizing are so high and people will react accordingly (lawsuit). Although they can in some instances plug a string of words into Google, I think people would eventually figure that out and find a more sophisticated way. Google isn't going to check against everything. I'm not saying Turnitin is right or wrong, I'm just saying why it's attractive, even though (high school) teachers can generally "tell" anyway. In a college class where there are limited papers it might be more difficult. </p>
<p>Just curious. What exactly defines a "database"? Does it have to be electronic? Because I'm nearly certain my school keeps our Extended Essays (for instance) for IB and I'm pretty sure the IBO keeps them too. For several years. In fact we see many examples of student's previous work that has been indexed and published by the IBO (no names obviously since some are "bad" examples) and they pull out old copies from our own school (with names, though only good examples). I'm sure we sign something releasing the IBO to this, but I know people who have had their EEs published. Essentially they are a part of a paper database. </p>
<p>Or is the situation hypothetical and the author COULD have those (convenient) restrictions?</p>
<p>No lawyer on earth--in good conscience--can deny the FACT that Turnitin emails word-for-word copies of students' papers to third parties around the world, without students' permission. What I do not understand is why no Turnitin supporters directly address the proof? Here it is again: </p>
<p><a href="http://www.mikesmit.com/page.php?id=23%5B/url%5D">http://www.mikesmit.com/page.php?id=23</a></p>
<p>If you support Turnitin, please explain how/why you can justify their blatant, hypocritical copyright infringement.</p>
<p>Do you know WHY Turnitin engages in this copyright infringement? </p>
<p>"You may be asking, 'How does providing a third party with a word-for-word copy of a student's original paper benefit Turnitin.com monetarily?' Well . . . *f you were a responsible professor considering paying for Turnitin, you would not commit to the purchase unless you received a POSITIVE answer to the following question:</p>
<p>'If Turnitin flags one of my student's papers as having been plagiarized from a student paper in your database, will I be able to read the original paper from which you claim that the student plagiarized? I need to see the original source myself if I am to confront the student with plagiarism charges, risking the student's reputation, my job, and a lawsuit against the school district.' </p>
<p>If Turnitin staff were to rightfully and responsibly answer 'No' to all such requests, thereby refusing access altogether to students' original, word-for-word writing, countless professors would never pay for Turnitin's uncorroborated results (or not renew existing contracts). After all, a professor can't convict a student of plagiarism and tarnish the student's life-long reputation based on hearsay. Turnitin's revenue would plummet. So, the people at Turnitin apparently choose to roll the 'legal dice' by disseminating students' intellectual property to third parties, hoping that a lawsuit never arises. In the meantime, Turnitin generates at least $10,000,000 in revenue per year by violating the IP rights of the millions of students for whom Turnitin hypocrytically claims to 'protect copyright.' This practice of blatant copyright infringement via third-party, public viewing may also violate FERPA regulations because a student's personal writing is an integral part of his/her educational record." </p>
<p>My school district purchased the Turnitin.com service this year (although it has been optional in all the classes where teachers use it). </p>
<p>I am opposed to Turnitin even though there is no "harm" which comes to me by my submitting my Hamlet paper or my poetry essay through Turnitin. I acknowledge that. However, I think it important that we fight this service for several reasons:
1) As of now the rate of false positives is very low, but consider--in 10, 20, or 50 years, how many papers on Hamlet will be in the database? What will the rate of false positives be then?
2) No harm comes to me if another teacher sees my Hamlet paper, but if I write a paper in college with an original idea in it, I don't want another professor to be able to read my work (and possibly steal my idea before I finalize and publish it).
3) Turnitin's motives are suspect because they benefit from catching students cheating. If teachers perceive Turnitin as useful they are more likely to continue to pay for it, so Turnitin has no incentive to reduce the rate of false positives and even has an incentive to "catch" many students cheating. </p>
<p>In my opinion, plagiarism is a problem and Turnitin is not the answer. Other databases with better guards against false positives and which respect students' legal rights will need to be developed before teachers can place their trust--and their students' futures--in a computer program.</p>
<p>As far as the false positives, none of my teachers just look at the % that turnitin gives, they look at the report. If you look at the reports, it becomes pretty clear what is actually plagiarism and what is not. IMO anyway. We haven't had any problems although the service catches all kinds of things that aren't really plagiarism, especially in history (any version of the phrase "the United States and Soviet Union in the Cold War" tends to get caught - obviously that's not plagiarism by itself and no one looking at the report is going to think it is). </p>
<p>I think your other claims are valid but I think the reports generated by Turnitin are generally used reasonably by teachers.</p>
<p>Etselec, in answer to your questions:
1. False positives: Turnitin gives the teacher a percentage of what was copied from various sources and a likelyhood of plagiarism. Like a DNA match there is a chance that two students might write the same paper, but as the amount of overlap increases that chance becomes miniscule. The teacher will then have to judge and that is why the original is supplied.
2. Professors copying papers turned in to Turnitin. If Turnitin records the date of entry, it may actually perform a protective function for the student by establishing a chronologic priority and documenting that the professor had had access to the paper.
3. Incentive to report False Positives: actually an increased rate of false positives is likely make their customers unhappy. No teacher wants to falsely accuse a student of cheating. It's hard enough to do when you have the proof in hand. Even if no law suits ensue false positives will result in a decrease in their business. Teachers will stop using it.</p>
<p>In response to post #35. Perhaps I was wrong and Tokenadult is the real troll and not you. You have to admit though that he would be the best troll we have seen: carefully signing in years in advance; disguising his intent by posting thousands of comments over hundreds of threads all in preparation for this moment; and then cleverly not adopting the screen name of "DefendTurnitIn"</p>
<p>"The teacher will then have to judge and that is why the original is supplied."</p>
<p>You just lost your case with that single statement. </p>
<p>So, who OK'd the transmission of the paper to a third party? </p>
<p>Bottom line: did the student author grant permission to Turnitin to provide his/her paper to a third party? No. End of story. The case will probably go no further than this point. There is no possible defense for Turnitin. What would you claim the defense to be? Perhaps: </p>
<p>"Well, if Turnitin doesn't provide the unwilling student's entire, word-for-word paper to some random teacher in China, how can Turnitin expect to make money from that 100% honest teacher in China who surely has no ulterior motives?" </p>
<p>Are you aware that the UNITED STATES GOVERMENT can't stop China from blatantly pirating our technology? Do you really think some poor teacher in China won't jump on the opportunity to capitalize on the ideas that he reads in a word-for-word dissertation, thesis, or research paper about an exciting new technolgy? In fact, what's to stop any teacher in a foreign country from filing bogus plagiarism claims based on common word strings (false positives) in order to gain access to new "computer technology" theses?</p>
<p>Ummm, who the hell cares if Turnitin can no longer make money with their current business model if they cease infringing copyrights? That's NOT the students' problem! </p>
<p>Last I checked, nobody likes a PARASITE.</p>
<p>So, we should not enable hundreds of thousands of teachers to catch the plagiarism that we know is going on in order to protect against teacher plagiarism of student papers that we think might occur.</p>
<p>We can't fix one law by breaking another.</p>
<p>You must recognize the fact that the type of people who found multi-million-dollar companies are those with foresight, cunning, ingenuity, and the ability to instantly recognize the weaknesses/vulnerabilities of OTHERS' technologies in order to capitalize for personal gain. Turnitin has severe weaknesses/vulnerabilities that threaten the future marketability of students' ideas.</p>
<p>By the way, here's a page dedicated to plagiarism by PROFESSORS: </p>
<p>Well, I dont know about you, but if I were working on something classified that I don't want the Chinese to see, I probably wouldn't make anyone post it on the internet. That's a personal decision, I think.</p>
<p>Re: plagiarism by professors. Just about all of these examples were professors' copying from published works. Maybe professors too should be forced to use a screener like Turnitin. Maybe Turnitin could be considered a form of publication and place a copywright or at least a time stamp on the pulication. In this way students or professors could established when something was written.
Wait a minute...that sounds like a business idea... everyone remember..you saw it here first.</p>
<p>My daughter paraphrased an entire college history book using turnitin for her AP history class. The students joke and say, "I can paraphrase as fast as I can read." Then her senior AP English teacher had them write papers using turnitin. Some papaphrasing undoubtedly went on, but with 130 or so students, a teacher must make decisions about which papers to "open up" and check for plagiarism. My daughter's did not get checked. All of this led her to believe that if turnitin does not "catch" plagiarism, then it did not occur. Now enter private liberal arts college bypassing first-year English where students learn how to write for college. Do you see the train wreck coming? Oh, but her papers were praised and her grades were nice. . .until a professor questioned her work and checked. . .honor council. . .failing courses. . .suspended. I think blame is to be laid all around. Certainly with the student. But turnitin gets a piece of that pie.</p>
<p>This is new. Turnitin blamed for false negatives. I don't think this line of reasoning is logical. If the teacher did not use Turnitin, I don't think he would have picked up the paraphrasing in HS, so your daughter would not have been taught about this in HS in any event. She would have passed her AP and still be set up for the same mistake. The HS English teacher ought to have mentioned this in class. If I were reading 130 papers (My wife is a HS English teacher and sometimes has me look over a student's paper she is reading.) there could be a lot of paraphrasing that I wouldn't pick up. I don't see how Turnitin is to blame.</p>
<p>"Well, I dont know about you, but if I were working on something classified that I don't want the Chinese to see, I probably wouldn't make anyone post it on the internet. That's a personal decision, I think."</p>
<p>That's exactly the issue. First off, professors will sometimes submit papers to Turnitin without the student's knowledge or consent. And even if the students themselves do the submitting, they are often REQUIRED to submit all their work through Turnitin. So if a student were working on something that they wouldn't want to share with a random professor in China, they wouldn't be able to use it for their class either. It's absurd that a student wouldn't be able to share an idea or concept with their professor without also making it available to anyone who asked. That kind of intellectual interaction between students and professors is a key part of the academic experience and we don't want students censoring themselves in their classwork.</p>
<p>Well, you are correct, I think, about my logic. The company, or the process of Turnitin is not at fault. But the high school use of Turnitin when teachers do not "police" the percentage of likely plagiarism leads students to a false sense of security. As more and more high schools come on line, more students will be arriving on the college campuses with a similar perception. So beware AP students and parents of students entering college in sophomore level courses.</p>