Turnitin Sucks :: plagiarism police

Turnitin SucksIts with a great deal of interest that Ive been following the most recent garboil in the blogoshpere about Turnitin.com and about whether or non higher ed is taking the proverbial low ground in the ethical battles by the increase use of Turnitin. It is my opinion and always has been that there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole process of requiring students to turn in their work to the plagiarism police.I think this written from the Honk Kong Polytechnic University is especially humorous. I didnt have their permission to show it on my site so I created my own sign at the Ronald McHummer site. near 2-3 years ago we had the conversation on campus about whether we should license (or is it subscribe to) the Turnitin service. Of course there were some people who were in favor of it, but the absolute majority was put off by the same things that have always bothered me about the deal. The arguments at that time against using Turnitin appear to still be the ma in(prenominal) arguments. In no particular order, they includeI am currently taking a course that requires me to submit my papers to Turnitin. My objection to Turnitin is that they are not only infringing my copyright, but that they are doing so for commercial profit. If they want to make money from storing my paper in a database, they should pay me for a license. (EricSmith comment on Slashdot)Why are we violating authorial integrity to teach students that violating authorial integrity is wrong? (by Bob, first comment)can shift attention away from teaching students how to lift plagiarism in the first place. In Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism The WPA Statement on Best Practices, the Council of Writing Program Administrators urges teachers to use plagiarism detection serve cautiously, for they should never be used to justify the avoidance of responsible teaching methods.I find it more than a bit ironic, that this company works with WebCT and Blackboard, who point that one should use Course Managment software to protect students privacy (alah FERPA) when turnitin.com fundamentally violates students rights. (Dave, Sept. 7, 1805)Its just like music composition. People with similar music facts of life backgrounds end up producing similar music. Thats just how it is. Are you seriously going to argue that the standard educational texts HAVENT been mined for every bloody original thought they contain a thousand times over? (read the whole comment by Cadallin)