Turnitin: Crutch? Or Valuable Tool?
Turnitin: Crutch? Or Valuable Tool?
Recently I was party to a Facebook discussion of the tool known as <A href="http://turnitin.com/static/index.php">Turnitin</A>. Turnitin is an online plagiarism detector. Students upload their papers, and the software reviews the writing to see if it matches anything in their database. It highlights suspect passages and allows the professor to directly compare them to the source match that the Turnitin software found. Additionally, there are also grading and peer review tools.
In our discussion, some felt the tool was quite valuable. Chris Andrew at Suffolk University says, “The very act of using it discourages cheating. I've been in classes with unique assignments and we have caught people using papers from students in previous semesters.” This is possible because Turnitin keeps records of all student papers submitted to them and also uses them for comparison. Notably, those who use Turnitin feel it is a great time saver.
Other faculty were distinctly unenthusiastic. Steve Horwitz of St, Lawrence University has three main objections: 1. Treats students as guilty until proven innocent. 2. Takes pressure off faculty to use cheat-proof assignments. 3. And makes it less likely that faculty will actually teach citation and honesty issues, not to mention writing skills more generally. Abel Roasa at George Mason University pointed out that false positives can be problematic as well.
My take: I haven’t used it, but have been sorely tempted. Especially in a larger class. Students need to practice using ideas and applying them. Papers are a great way for them to do so. However, then we have to grade them. Anything that makes grading faster and easier seems a good thing. We just have to remember it’s not a substitute for teaching. At San Jose State University, the library has a tutorial section which includes a lesson and quiz on plagiarism which I have found to be a very helpful assignment. You might check with your library to see if they have something similar.
Have your used TurnItIn, or similar programs, and what do you think of the service? What do you think of the anti-TurnItIn arguments?
Comments
The High Cost of Honesty
Jeffrey Horn sent me a note bringing my attention to an illuminating article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Absolutely fascinating and, at the same time, horrifying. Thanks for sending, Jeff!
TurnItIn
I consider TurnItIn a useful tool. I used it this last academic year and found three cases of plagiarism. Before every paper I made sure to remind students of what constitutes plagiarism and that I would be using TurnItIn to screen the papers. My impression was that the plagiarists were skeptical of the ability of the website to catch copying, and maybe they thought I was just trying to scare them.
In all cases the cheating was very obvious (I never had a case where it was questionable), but I allowed the students to respond after showing them the evidence. Two admitted they knew what they did was wrong, and blamed their actions on the pressures of college. The other claimed that she sent the wrong draft -- which doesn't explain why 50% of one of her drafts came from a paper submitted the previous year.
Steve Horowitz's fears are reasonable, but I think they reflect issues with the instruction rather than the technology. Accused students should be allowed to see the evidence and respond. Instructors should craft assignments most appropriate for allowing students to demonstrate what they learned. And, although I fail to see how not using TurnItIn would make an instructor more likely to teach citation style, proper format should be specified whenever appropriate. I actually think using TurnItIn makes it more important to do these things since there's more on the line for the students.
Via Marginal Revolution:
Via Marginal Revolution: There is apparently a service out there that will tell students if their paper will pass TurnItIn:
What is less well appreciated is that Turnitin also sells its services to students. In fact, students whose professors use Turnitin are encouraged to pre-submit their work to Writecheck which will analyze and “verify” for the students that their paper has “properly quoted, summarized or paraphrased” previous work and it will also relieve students from “worrying that their paper will be recycled without their knowledge.” Uh huh.
In other words, WriteCheck will tell students if their essays will pass Turnitin! David Harrington summarizes nicely: