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FEATURE

OVER THE EDGE NEWSPAPER. OCTOBER 11, 2006

TurnltIn.com - A Solution or a Problem?

JEREMY JOHNSON
STAFF WRITER

“First Rule —- There Are No Rules’,
“Over Half of All Students Admit to
Cheating’, “Cheating Plagues Schools’.
These are just some of the headlines
causing a bit of a buzz lately. Strangely
enough, there was also word. circulat-
ing around of a service to fight alleged
cheating also circulating around. That
is, of course, a web service known as
TurnlItIn.com. The web service boasts,
“Instantly identifies papers containing
unoriginal material.’ It also shows off
other services that can easily be utilized
in WebCT,

So this supposed saviour to this pla-
giarism epidemic is to swoop in and save
the day with its flashy ads and smiling
faces, The timing couldnt have been
more perfect ~ maybe even too perfect.
Was with mere coincidence or was this
ingenious marketing? Although this
article discusses the issues surrounding
plagiarism and related issues with an
emphasis on TurnItIn.com, this article
will not go any further in speculating on
the public turn of events in the media in
terms of timing.

What if UNBC enrolled in this service
for next year? If it was a cheap service,
one would suspect that the prices would
also be posted as well. Only if you were
willing to give them your e-mail, phone
number and full name would you even

supposedly see a price. With tuition

fees gradually going up, whatever the
price is, it might be assumed that it’s a
bit too pricey to gain any business in the
first place if it were advertised on their
website.

Where is this company (iParadigms,
LLC) located? That answer is a bit easier
to find. They are located in the United
States. While on the surface, given that
it's an internet based company, it doesn't
sound like much, but legally speaking,
it adds a layer of complications. With
the Patriot Act, Patriot 2, and FISA
(Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)
and the controversial Rep. Wilson's Sur-
veillance Bill currently being tabled in
congress, it also puts anti-terrorism laws
as well as the US privacy laws into the

equation.

How much of a privacy concern is
this? Over The Edge asked Philippa
Lawson, the Executive Director and
General Counsel of the Canadian In-
ternet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
(CIPPIC) about the potential implica-
tions on privacy with respect to anti-
terrorism efforts. “In my view, there are
privacy issues any time Canadians’ per-
sonal information is outsourced to the
US. College essays could be particularly
revealing about an individual. Once in
the hands of a US corporation, such es-
says could be accessed without notice
to the author by the FBI, scanned for
suspicious words or phrases, and used
to identify potential terrorist threats,
This is an issue that runs across many
sectors and is not specific to Turnitin.
com.’ She comments, “But I do think
that students should object if they are
being forced to turn their essays in to a
US corporation. (I'm not sure that there
ate significant privacy issues with forced
submission of essays to a local checking
service, though. This would depend on
the policies of the service - e.g., no sec-
ondary uses or sharing, strict security
measures, etc.)” ‘

For a second reference, Over The
Edge asked Don Munton from UNBC’s
International Studies. “I strongly sus-
pect there is nothing to stop the FBI or
DHS [Department of Homeland Se-
curity] or anyone else from doing that
[getting hold of the essays and putting
suspicious students on anti-terrorism
black-lists]. If it’s on the web it’s available
to all. There is nothing private about it.

US agencies monitor email and phone

calls, so doing the same on the internet
would not only not be illegal but be a
piece of cake.’ Says Munton, “Also, Can-
adians’ names have appeared on watch
lists because they are the same name as
someone else's, Having said that, writing
on terrotism and advocating terrorism
are miles apart.”

An anonymous source shared the
sentiment by claiming that while this
is entirely legal for surveillance depart-
ments in the US to use such ‘suspect’ es-
says in this manner, such essays would

be‘low on the totem pole’ and cautioned
about being ‘too paranoid’ over this.

Another concern is whether or not
the service makes legitimate use of a
students intellectual property (that be-
ing, the essays) According to an article
in the Washington Post (entitled “Stu-
dents Rebel Against Database Designed
to Thwart Plagiarists” by Maria Glod)
it references professors claiming that
the service makes “questionable use” of a
students intellectual property given that
this is a for-profit company and there are
cases of students being forced to use the
service against their will and they gain
nothing financially in the process.

Taking a step back, how does Turnl-
tIn.com work to stop plagiarism? A
campus administrator enrols in this
service for the mystery fee. Then the
professors choose whether or not to
utilise it. Ifa professor chooses to utilise
the service, he or she sends all the es-
says electronically through the internet
to the TurnltIn.com database where it
would be analysed for consistencies. If
matches were found, it would notify the
professor that plagiarism had occurred,
If it detects it, then the professor can use
this information however they see fit.

Two sources claim that this service
is already in use at UBC. One source
recalled having principles against such
a thing as TurnItIn.com. On his final
semester before graduating, he talked
about how one professor threatened
to give him a zero if he refused to let
him use the service. A zero on the es-
say meant a zero in the course. He had
to “abandon his principles” in order to
graduate.

Is TurnItIn.com a big concern? Over
The Edge surveyed close to 100 students
and professors to figure out how they felt.
It was shortly after the surveys started
that the entire concept of TurnltIn.com
took on a life of its own and went over
and above a simple matter of privacy.
While these surveys were designed to
try and get an insight on general feelings
towards the service, it is merely a small
sample of the overall population of fac-
ulty and students ideas, However, the
surveys in this article are in full.

Professors are certainly key players in
stopping plagiarism, If one thinks that
they are all out to weed out all the cheat-
ers, nitpicking at every possible thing
in the essay to find a line that could be
modified from a pre-existing text with-
out citation probably deserves a slap
across the back of the head for blatant
negative generalisation. While a lot of
them had their own interesting slant on
the issue, there was a reoccurring theme
amongst those opposed to using Turnl-
tIn.com, One professor notes that pla-
giarism can easily be stopped without
the need of such a service through the
sharing of knowledge in the classroom.
If dialogue can occur in the classroom,
the students are generally engaged into
the discussion whether or not they
contribute. It’s probably because it isn't
solely the professor talking, but rather
the peers actually proposing different
ideas and ways of looking at a particu-
lar subject which might encourage more
original thought.

Two professor notes that a service
such as TurnItIn.com sets a very nega-
tive tone to tackling the issue as opposed
to a positive tone. One professor noted
an experience with a figure who kept
restricting the rules in an educational
facility. What ended up happening
was that friction kept building with the
figurehead until that figurehead moved
on and a new figurehead took that other
figure head's place. Subsequently, the
tone was changed from a negative tone
to a positive and constructive tone. The
result was that the educational facility
ran smoother and things like plagiarism
slowed down significantly.

One professor says that the privacy
concerns as well as setting a constructive
atmosphere is pure bullshit. The fact is
that there will always be students who

cheat and it is just a matter of tracking -

down the cheaters and punishing them
accordingly. Essentially, a tool such as
TurnltIn.com would significantly benefit
a professor in stopping plagiarism. This
professor noted that if there are any stu-
dents who would fall in the unlikelihood
of getting burned by US law would be
no skin off of this persons’ back because

it would be more likely to nail a cheater
then stop a student at the border.
Other professors disagreed with this
notion. Many professors say that pla-
giarism is a symptom of a larger problem.
Some question if such a hypothetical
professor is assigning so much home-
work that it is encouraging the student
to cheat. Some: professors say that it is
entitely possible that the unfortunate
scenario could occur where a student
couldn't manage their time properly and
end up starting the night before the due
date and cheat to get the work done on
time. A number of professors submit-
ted a notion that if a professor actually
needs to use a tool like TurnItIn.com,

_ it may actually say something about the

knowledge that professor has in his or
her given field of study - if such a profes-
sor cant figure out what is plagiarised or
not by simply reading the content.

There were professors who noted that
it would be more favourable if the essays
were submitted anonymously. Other
professors say that it would be differ-
ent if there was a Canadian version of
TurnItIn.com since it would eliminate
privacy concerns because the informa-
tion would be held within the country.

Some professors even question the
usefulness of such a tool. Given that an
assignment can cover a number of differ-
ent possible topics, what are the chances
of finding that particular assignment by
another professor? It is especially appar-
ent when that assignment is given based
on a very specific though as brought up
in the classroom setting. While broad
topics can be covered by such a database,
it's the specific such topics that put in
question the relevance of TurnItIn.com.
One professor notes that if a student is
assigned a topic that is of interest, the
student is far more likely to not only not
plagiarise, but also work hard at it given
that it’s relevant to them.

While not covered in the survey, one
professor notes that such a service could
be very expensive — especially since a
very easy method is simply typing a sus-
pect line in Google for free. Another
complaint about TurnItIn.com is the
fact that it is time consuming to feed
essays into any such a database. One
professor noted that catching and deal-
ing with cheating costs the class and the
professor's time, let alone put such a sys-
tem in place.

All these notions and thoughts put
forward by the faculty seems to make
one of the notions put forth by a TurnI-
tIn.com advocate seem alien. That no-
tion is (paraphrasing), ‘since TurnItIn.
com catches cheaters, it allows profes-
sors to assign more complicated essays.

Another thing not mentioned in the
survey, but conveyed by professors was
exactly how rampant cheating really
is. One professor says that a cheater is
caught every semester. Another pro-
fessor says that throughout their entire
career, they only caught three cheaters,
Some professors note say that they saw
a special on TV (CTV) where a study
conducted. said that 58% of first year
students admitted to cheating while
18% of total undergraduates said that
they had cheated at some points in their
post secondary career. Their reaction to
it ranged from surprise to scepticism.

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