Use with caution: Turnitin.com :: plagiarism detection software

Use with watchfulness Turnitin.comby Valerie Balester, Executive DirectorWe were informed this past summer by Instructional Technology Services that students should not include identifying information on work submitted to Turnitin.com. ITS is concerned about reservations expressed by the U.S. Department of fostering regarding student privacy and FERPA regulations. However, some professionals within the field of composition dictation cast other concerns plagiarism detection parcel like Turnitin does much than damage, many of us fear, than violating privacy. One of the most influential professional organizations in composition, the Conference on College Communication and Composition (CCCC), for example, suggests that plagiarism detection parcel undermines students authority everywhere the uses of their own writing (http//ccccip.org/files/CCCC-IP-PDS-Statement-final.pdf).Why, you might ask, should we care? later all, student writing is just practice writing, and it doesnt real ly press for anything. Its not like our writing, by which we make our bread and butter. besides when we treat student writing as inconsequential, so do students, and the resultant is the careless, poorly written drivel that we squander been trying to obliterate with W courses. Students who do not feel pride of ownership and control over their work allow for not give it the time and attention it ineluctably to be excellent.Beyond this basic concern is the atmosphere plagiarism software detection programs can create, the expectation that students will cheat, that they are basically untrusty in their work. This atmosphere undermines trust and make writing even more distasteful. Its just another trap, another hurdle to jump earlier graduation. Students are encouraged to see writing for college as a patch rather than as an integral part of their education. We dont pauperism that.The CCCC also worries that programs like Turnitin will make college faculty complacent by shifting r esponsibility for detecting plagiarism onto technology. Its only a matter of time before students learn to beat the software. I have personally tested it with my students, asking them to cheat many of their transgressions went undetected by Turnitin. Students who run originality reports that come out clean may still have made mistakes, but if they rely too heavily on the report, they will not know it.After all, learning citation properly is far-off more than learning a set of rules, a style, the correct spatial relation of commas and capital letters. Learning citation is first and foremost learning how a discipline creates and disseminates knowledge. It is subtle, takes many years to master, and is the mark of a professional.