2pnet.net News:- The coyly named Turnitin, a US application designed to stop students from improperly re-cycling other students’ work, has already angered some Canadians.

Back in March, Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, banned it and, “We in no way condone plagiarism,” declared student union president Chantal Brushett, stressing that Turnitin raises a host of human rights, legal and intellectual-property issues.

McLean High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, gives Virtue Mine Honor as its motto, saying its mission is to, “graduate educated and responsible citizens” and in a post on its web site, states:

The McLean High School community values honesty, fairness, and respect for others. We expect our students to adhere to the McLean Honor Code. Beginning this school year, McLean High School will be employing Turnitin.com as a teaching tool and as a plagiarism deterrent. Turnitin.com is used by 18 other FCPS high schools, as well as in many colleges and universities throughout the nation. Please click here to read a school-wide letter with more information. Parents and students are also invited to learn more about this teaching tool at www.turnitin.com. If you have questions or concerns, please email Kimberly Carney, Assistant Principal. (August 31, Leadership Team.

In Canada, students had to allow their papers to be submitted to the Turnitin database and, since it was a course requirement, “they’re over a barrel,” said Brushett, emphasizing that school staff had other ways of checking on papers, “such as working with university librarians or typing a fishy-sounding line into Google.

“There’s no need to be submitting papers to a for-profit company based in the United States, in order to check for that plagiarism, if it exists,” she said.

Now some members of McLean’s new Committee for Students’ Rights say they don’t cheat or condone cheating, either, “But they object to Turnitin’s automatically adding their essays to the massive database, calling it an infringement of intellectual property rights,” says The Washington Post. “And they contend that the school’s action will tar students at one of Fairfax County’s academic powerhouses.”

“It irked a lot of people because there’s an implication of assumed guilt,” the story has Ben Donovan, 18, a senior who helped collect 1,190 student signatures on a petition against mandatory use of the service, saying. “It’s like if you searched every car in the parking lot or drug-tested every student.”

Fairfax County and Turnitin officials said lawyers for the company and various universities claim Turnitin doesn’t violate student rights, “But three professors at Grand Valley State University in Michigan this month posted a letter online arguing that Turnitin ‘makes questionable use of student intellectual property,” says the Washington Post story, adding:

“The University of Kansas last week decided to let its contract with Turnitin expire because of cost and intellectual property concerns. And the intellectual property caucus of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, an organization of 6,000 college-level educators, is debating whether such services “undermine students’ authority over the uses of their own writing” and make them feel “guilty until proven innocent,” according to a draft position statement.”

Meanwhile, Fairfax County began using Turnitin in 2003. More than three-fourths of the county’s high schools now use the service.

(Thanks, Maxie)

Also See:
angered some Canadians - Vibration Feedback Technology, September 25, 2006
The Washington Post - Students Rebel Against Database Designed to Thwart Plagiarists, September 22, 2006

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