--- air-l-request@listserv.aoir.org wrote: even if we keep aside the ethical and moral implications, there are other serious issues to consider. namely privacy of the students' and surveillance of their works. as turnitin.com is a US company, the FBI and other federal agencies can access the database under the Patriot act. if that ever happens, how can you assure your students that their rights aren't being trampled by an orwellian big brother agency. shouldn't the students' security be of the utmost importance to any faculty member and the university? I am a grad student myself and I fully agree with rosanna. fortunately in our university i haven't faced to submit anything to turitin, otherwise i might have considered suing myself! anyway, there's an insightful article in the recent issue of University Affairs magazine that looks into similar issue: http://www.universityaffairs.ca/issues/2007/january/academic_libraries_01.ht... miraj khaled ============ Graduate Student Simon Fraser University
Message: 6 Date: Fri, 9 Mar 2007 00:57:30 +0100 From: "Rosanna Tarsiero" <rosanna@gionnethics.com> Subject: Re: [Air-l] turnitin issue To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org>
As a student myself (and online instructor), I never plagiarized a paper, and I do know that there are persons that do.
However, the assumption that students need to prove innocent (rather than innocence unless otherwise proven) bothers me a great deal.
I would refuse both submitting a paper to turnitin AND doing supplemental work. In all honesty, I do hope that some student sooner or later ends up suing colleges. Assuming people to be guilty unless otherwise proven violates quite a number of human rights.
Rosanna Tarsiero
"Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him."
--James Allen
-----Original Message----- From: air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces@listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Mark Warschauer Sent: venerd? 9 marzo 2007 0.50 To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] turnitin issue
I know of no precedent or case law, but this is an issue that is taken seriously here at UC Irvine. Students are usually given the permission to opt out of submitting their papers through Turnitin.com, but professors then require any students who opt out to complete one or more alternate assignments to demonstrate their papers were not plagiarized (and those alternatives can be quite onerous). See examples at
http://eee.uci.edu/faculty/ccopenha/39b-student/turnitin.students.htm
Mark Warschauer
Dear AOIRers,
A colleague teaching another course has come across an issue with an undergrad who refuses to hand in her term paper because the faculty member's course requires that all papers also be submitted to Turnitin.com.
The student claims that this violates her own intellectual property because Turnitin reportedly keeps copies for future plagiarism searches.
As a supposed ICT & society "expert," my colleague came to me for advice. My first thought was horsefeathers.
However, I am wondering if there is any precedent or case law on this in Canada or the US. (EU would be too different, I think.)
I am not interested in the ethics or the morality of Turnitin, but in how other situations have been resolved.
Thanks, Barry Wellman
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