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When Turnitin is used primarily to help students understand citation practice, then it is indeed a powerful educational tool. At the University of Newcastle in Australia, we insist that students must first see their Turnitin reports and correct them if necessary prior to final submission of an assignment. In this way, students have to make judgements re matching text and to do this they need to understand the requirements. Nothing focuses a student's mind in terms of learning about plagiarism avoidance more than seeing their own work in colour. This not only greatly reduces plagiarism but enhances learning. On the IP issue, research students and academics may use Turnitin to protect their work from unscrupulous supervisors and colleagues. Turnitin is not perfect, but it has made a very big and positive impact in our University and my School in particular. S Suzanne Ryan Teaching, Learning and Quality Coordinator Newcastle Graduate School of Business University of Newcastle Callaghan NSW 2308 Australia Phone +61 2 49 216015 Fax +61 2 49 217398 www.gsb.newcastle.edu.au >>> "Schmitt, Diane" <[log in to unmask]> 27/09/06 7:35 AM >>> My good for them is based on the uneasy feeling many people share and I feel quite strongly about is that forcing students to submit papers through Turnitin or other software is a breach of trust. All students are being tarred with the "you might be a potential cheater brush". The article states that another high school that uses the service - Broad Run, found only 3 cases of cheating in the first year of use and has found only another 3 cases since 2002. You could infer that Turnitin is working and cheaters have been deterred or you could infer that not that many kids at Broad Run high school cheat anyway and that the school is spending a whole lot of money for nothing. The media and academics are often far too quick to haul students in front of disciplinary boards for cheating when in fact they have simply referenced poorly. I teach students about referencing and it is very rare that students get it right the first or even second time around. The students at B Diane Schmitt Senior Lecturer of EFL/TESOL Nottingham Language Centre Nottingham Trent University Burton Street Nottingham NG1 4BU Tel 0115 848 6156 Fax 0115 848 6513 [log in to unmask] ________________________________ From: Plagiarism on behalf of Mike Reddy Sent: Tue 26/09/2006 22:12 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Making money off students - Tail wagging the dog Diane's "Good for them!" is what got me mad. The phrase "making money off students" put the cherry on the cake. I'm no defender of TurnitinUK - detection software does not solve the problem of copying, just the detection (mostly) - but from my understanding of the technical aspects of the way the database works, the 'use' of students' work is limited to the thumbprint that is stored. This would not allow Barrie or any other iParadigms employee to read and, therefore, use an essay; the only way that an author's IP could be abused. You might just as well say that all the words I have just used to type this email are the property of someone else. Of the electrons flowing through the computer that made up the email. The thumbnails produced by analysing the essays are rather like the results of me counting how many of each letter were used. Would the fact that ?? letter Ts were used be an infringement of my IP if you took the trouble to count it for yourself? Whether or not IP belongs to the students or the universities - many of which have clauses defining ownership in the 'contract' signed on registration, but fewer have the procedures to regain that after coursework submission and marking - is another matter. Maybe, Diane could explain her remarks and suggest alternatives to using plagiarism detection software? P.S. There really were 124 Ts used. 124 is therefore, my intellectual property. ************************************************************************* You are subscribed to the JISC Plagiarism mailing list. To Unsubscribe, change your subscription options, or access list archives, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/PLAGIARISM.html ************************************************************************* This email is intended solely for the addressee. It may contain private and confidential information. If you are not the intended addressee, please take no action based on it nor show a copy to anyone. In this case, please reply to this email to highlight the error. Opinions and information in this email that do not relate to the official business of Nottingham Trent University shall be understood as neither given nor endorsed by the University. Nottingham Trent University has taken steps to ensure that this email and any attachments are virus-free, but we do advise that the recipient should check that the email and its attachments are actually virus free. This is in keeping with good computing practice. ************************************************************************* You are subscribed to the JISC Plagiarism mailing list. To Unsubscribe, change your subscription options, or access list archives, visit http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/PLAGIARISM.html ************************************************************************* ************************************************************************* You are subscribed to the JISC Plagiarism mailing list. 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