Hi Richard and others,
We do give this access at Portsmouth (in the department where I'm based, anyway) and in general, it does help students to reduce their similarity percentages and they do anecdotally value having this access to the tool. So on that angle, I really agree with Sarah's point - it does more good than harm within the broader context that the institution uses Turnitin anyway (the ethical issue of using it full stop is a different matter!).
But I also agree with the thrust of what others say in the thread, that a tool like Turnitin can't and shouldn't replace pedagogy about scholarship, different 'voices' in texts etc which develop students' awareness more holistically. That will only become more important as time goes on and knowledge creation processes continue to evolve - as will moving with the times in terms of how we 'check' it. I always try to first take the view that 'plagiarism' results from not understanding the rules rather than deliberate malice, use it to move to a discussion about writing processes, and then go from there depending how the student responds.
Ian
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