The start of the school year means new classes and for many students these will involve the use of Turnitin.com, an electronic resource designed to detect plagiarism used regularly at the University of Toronto. The program works by checking submitted student papers for textual similarity against the millions of resources stored in its database, including an archived copy of the Internet, published works, and student papers submitted to Turnitin since 1996. Papers containing too many textual similarities are flagged as possible cases of plagiarism. While Turnitin is considered a valuable resource by many professors who might otherwise not spot plagiarism in student work, it is also the source of a number of controversies which suggest that students should think twice before submitting their work to the website.
Turnitin’s name is more reminiscent of Crime Stoppers tip hotlines and criminal activity than of an academic resource. Many students at universities such as McGill, Mount Saint Vincent, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford have criticized the program for its assumption of student guilt before any crime has been committed. All students are regarded as potential plagiarists, and must prove themselves innocent by submitting their work to a resource that rigorously scans it and creates an “originality report.” Since recent studies have shown the number of undergraduate students who have admitted to cheating at least once during their time at a post-secondary institution is at 70 to 80 per cent, many argue that this presumption of guilt is justified. However, Turnitin’s “guilty until proven innocent” approach is about more than just catching plagiarists — it also creates an atmosphere of mistrust between teachers and students that fosters a negative learning environment. Rather than encouraging professors to create assignments that are difficult to plagiarize and to teach their students about academic integrity and proper citation styles, Turnitin reduces student-teacher relationships to ones of rule enforcement. An emphasis on catching cheaters rather than avoiding academic dishonesty in the first place does not allow for learning opportunities, only for a mechanistic system of surveillance and penalties.
Turnitin’s practice of permanently storing submitted student papers in its database has also been the source of controversy. Iparadigms LLC, the company that created Turnitin, asserts that the information stored is only a digital “fingerprint” of the work and not the work’s actual content, and that students retain copyright of their work even after submission to Turnitin. Despite this, Turnitin’s policy of storing all submitted work in its database is a way of using students’ intellectual property for commercial purposes. Turnitin regularly flaunts the unrivalled size of its database as an incentive for prospective universities considering its use. John Barrie, the founder of Turnitin, has declared that, “in very short order, [Turnitin will] have it all wrapped up. […] There will be no room for anybody else, not even a Microsoft, to provide a similar type of service because we will have the database.” Student work submitted to Turnitin automatically becomes a part of this massive database, as there is no option offered to students who do not wish to have their intellectual property used in this way. It is questionable whether universities should use a resource that allows students’ original work to be used for a private company’s profit.
Given the various concerns that have surfaced about Turnitin, U of T allows students to choose whether or not they will use the resource. It also provides them with alternatives if they should choose not to, such as handing in rough notes with an essay. However, professors have a responsibility to do more than simply offer alternatives to Turnitin. They should also take the time to explain why a student might choose to opt for another method of evaluation. Similarly, students must do their research and consider the implications of their decision before using Turnitin.com for their assignments.
