Why Turning It In is Not at All In
And while the notion of plagiarism checking is already existent decades ago, it was made even easier by the online services which offer plagiarism-checks, such as Copyscape and Turnitin. However, understanding the logic behind, these online services would not have been there in the first place if not for the internet paving the way for copyright infringement and plagiarism proliferation.
Why Not
Donturnitin.com lists several issues on why students should not use the online service. Here is a condensed version of what is contained in the website
Presumption of guilt -undermines the honor code.
Privacy anonymity is not guaranteed considering that email addresses and name are required to access the site.
Violation of Intellectual Property Laws submitting of work for a for-profit business entity.
These three issues will be discussed in depth in the succeeding parts of this paper. Readers are left with the decision of either turning it in or not.
Parallel universe of Music Industry
In the parallel universe of the music industry, both labels and artists suffers greatly from the easy P2P file sharing practices among people which involves music tracks and videos, among others. In the book Sonic Boom, it was stated that the advent of the internet has caused wrenching headaches for the music industry but it has also unleashed unprecedented worldwide distribution of music and unparalleled communication between fans and musicians (Alderman, 2001). This quotation poses a valuable point wherein it shows that while there are detriments present in the integration of the internet in our daily lives, there is commensurate benefit that is received. In the realm of academic writing, the detriment is in using the papers uploaded to the website and Turnitin profiteering from it. The commensurate benefit is that no person in the world will be able to use your very own ideas without his paper being marked as plagiarized. There is a give and take mechanism and despite not being compensated for feeding the database information from your uploaded files.
However, another common complaint of students is that they are being forced to comply with submitting their papers to these plagiarism-check software or websites. They unwittingly pay for the use of the plagiarism checkers as part of their annual tuition fee. The argument existing being that no person would ever want to pay the police to arrest him.
The Unknown Overseers
Take for example Foucaults Panopticon. The plot was during the time of a deadly plague and that officials were forced to hold everyone under strict military rule in order to control the contagion. What is vividly remembered from the panopticon is the central tower (an architectural wonder built by Jeremy Bentham in 1785) wherein the militia can readily see the people being held in the tower without him being seen by them. This act of surveillance is a frightening parallel example for plagiarism checkerwith Turnitin acting like a CCTV (Close Circuit Television) camera which looks over all students works and carefully checks them for plagiarized passages. It is a tactic by which the professors infuse fear over the students in order to make them follow what it being dictated. As stated by Foucault
By the effect of backlighting, one can observe from the tower, standing out precisely against the light, the small captive shadows in the cells of the periphery. They are like so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible. The panoptic mechanism arranges spatial unities that make it possible to see constantly and to recognize immediately. In short, it reverses the principle of the dungeon or rather of its three functions - to enclose, to deprive of light and to hide - it preserves only the first and eliminates the other two. Full lighting and the eye of a supervisor capture better than darkness, which ultimately protected. Visibility is a trap.
The students are being enclosed in a schools or classroom, not deprived of light because they are still free to move about and do anything as they please. And the fact that this plagiarism checking is in place is not even hidden to them. They know it well enough. Like the prisoners in the panopticon, it is doubly wearisome for them to be supervised by some unknown force that can inflict severe punishment at point blank. Therefore students in the academe who knowingly have their papers checked for plagiarism by an unknown program makes it a more frightening experience to bear and thus the aim of the professor is achievedto deter the students from plagiarizing anything.
Copyright Woes
In a time of digital transactions, most internet users are being bound by the click-wrap contracts before they get to access a service or a database. More so, this contract is put into place to make sure that the company is given enough protection in case disputes arise. Like the use of copyrighted content by Turnitin in order to check the authenticity of students works against the documents available in its database. As plagiarism-detecting software, Turnitin checks the papers submitted against the information available from the internet and also the papers which are not yet in the public domain, such as recently uploaded theses or papers of other students who use the same service.
But while this seems agreeable enough for most students since Turnitin has caused no harm to the market value of these works (Bailey, 2008), even the act of uploading and storing their work in Turnitins database already violated their copyright by storing their work without permission and using it as part of a for-profit business (Bailey, 2008). Another point of consideration is whether Turnitins database is fully hack-proof that it may boldly announce that no one will be able to break in their database of papers and reproduce them for profit. In the much publicized case of iParadigms lawsuit, the students argued that besides violating their copyright, there are a lot of IT professionals adept with every single nook and cranny of websites and can hack effortlessly. The website is not a secured repository of their work, which students argued could easily be hacked.(Hendry, 2009)
This issue is shared by many people who rely on digital transactions in order to avail services in the net. The protection of consumer and the confidentiality of information (Boss) are main banner arguments which are being used time and against by people who lobby against file uploading. But in the case of Turnitin, aside from the safety issue the students are also concerned about how the information hey uploaded in the website can be used in the future by people who might be able to hack the site and download the information it contains. This will further be elaborated in the next discussion.
It is an interesting case considering that copyright laws are somehow vague in defining the grounds for copyright infringement. And the very fact that the digital age was way out of context during the creation of the copyright act made it even harder for the lawmakers to provide specific grounds to protect peoples copyright acts.
Where the Choice
The supporters of plagiarism checkers argue that the students have given their consent in clicking the I Agree button when they check their papers against Turnitin. However, click-wrap contracts only apply when the people who made the papers themselves are the ones who will upload the papers. This does not apply to professors who submit their students works to these websites for plagiarism-checking. A comment reached The Chronicles website regarding this issue
Now the search goes out for any student who has a paper thats being held by TurnItIn that they did not upload themselves, the post said. Isnt this the case when faculty submits student papers to such programs I have long been concerned about this type of practice as there are sometimes personal items in student papers that are not appropriate to share
The faculty only represents the students when they go submit the students papers to Turnitin. And the teachers also assume that the students are giving their consent for this plagiarism-check. However, it is simplistically voiced out by students that they will suffer tremendously if they do not allow computerized plagiarism-checking to be conducted with their paper. This statement is grounded on two reasons 1) it is part of the course requirements (professors saving time and effort when using computerized plagiarism-checkers instead of manually checking each passage and simply relying on ones own understanding) 2) the payment for the service (considering the fact that Turnitin is an expensive service) is already integrated within the Miscellaneous fees of every academic year and enrolling will automatically mean agreeing with the policies of the school.
As much as the students would like to go against the ruling of using Turnitin, there has been no viable alternative for checking term papers. It compels the teachers to look for a more acceptable solution that will be in line with the students demands but it seems as if that alternative is not yet existent to date. So they are left with minimal choice which boils down to conforming with the course requirements and passing the subject or not letting your professor check it against Turnitin or not passing it at all. And if we are going to reconsider all the valid arguments of the students, these two choices seem unfair and that the students are always at the losing end of everything.
Issue of Effectiveness versus Moral High Ground
In a study undertaken by three Jacksonville University students, their study resulted to advocating for the use of Turnitin as a plagiarism checker to curb plagiarism occurrence in academic papers. The conclusion mentioned that it appears that students having access to the Turnitin program is effective in reducing plagiarism (Russel K. Baker, 2008). The issue of it being effective is considerable, keeping in mind that not all people intend to plagiarize but are unwittingly plagiarizing due to lack of knowledge in citation or other technical malfunctions. But what is being forwarded here in this paper is the superiority of the moral high ground of students. Being labeled as a plagiarizer, being graded an F for a paper, being subjected to total humiliation because of a simplistic search engine for plagiarized passages does not promote the morality of people. Instead, it instills fear and criminalized the act but does not raise the bar of academic writing. Instead of upholding autonomous obedience, plagiarism checkers creates an unseen militia ready to castigate students for the deed they have done.
Morality is seen less in heteronymous obedience particularly because the students are afraid not of committing a mistake in writing their paper but in receiving the commensurate punishment for it. Relating it to Jean Baudrillards idea of simulation(Stephen W. Littlejohn, 2008), instead of inculcating the value of honesty and moral standards, the rules are simplified to a point that the values are being undermined by the punishments the students are subjected to. The values of the academe are given a human face, and aptly described, the only reason it exists is to remind the students that there is someone who is watching over the things they do. Just like in a panopticon.
Conclusion
In an attempt to curb the number of students committing plagiarism, it is expected from professors and other academic personnel to enforce strict rules regarding plagiarism. And since relying on personal knowledge will not suffice in checking for plagiarized passages, help from mechanized databases might indeed be needed in order to totally battle this free information stream which is completely downloadable in the internet. Amidst the many issues surrounding the use of Turnitin as a plagiarism checker, there must be a compelling need to address these issues and look for solutions in order arrive at a common ground in using the service. Plagiarism is a serious issue but there are more ways to lobby for it than to use an Artificial Intelligence to combat it.
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