STUDENTS REBEL AGAINST PLAGIARISM DATABASE

MARIA GLOD, WASHINGTON POST - When McLean [VA] High School students
write this year about Othello or immigration policy, their teachers
won't be the only ones examining the papers. So will a California
company that specializes in catching cheaters.

The for-profit service known as Turnitin checks student work against a
database of more than 22 million papers written by students around the
world, as well as online sources and electronic archives of journals.
School administrators said the service, which they will start using next
week, is meant to deter plagiarism at a time when the Internet makes it
easy to copy someone else's words. . .
"It irked a lot of people because there's an implication of assumed
guilt," said Ben Donovan, 18, a senior who helped collect 1,190 student
signatures on a petition against mandatory use of the service. "It's
like if you searched every car in the parking lot or drug-tested every
student."

Questions about the legality and effectiveness of plagiarism detection
services such as Turnitin are swirling beyond McLean High, another sign
of the challenge educators face as they navigate benefits and problems
the Internet has brought.

Fairfax school and Turnitin officials said lawyers for the company and
various universities have concluded that the paper-checking system does
not violate student rights. Many educators agree. Turnitin, a leader in
the field, lists Georgetown University and the University of Maryland's
University College among its clients. Others include some public schools
in Montgomery, Prince George's, Loudoun and Arlington counties.

But three professors at Grand Valley State University in Michigan this
month posted a letter online arguing that Turnitin "makes questionable
use of student intellectual property." The University of Kansas last
week decided to let its contract with Turnitin expire because of cost
and intellectual property concerns. And the intellectual property caucus
of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, an
organization of 6,000 college-level educators, is debating whether such
services "undermine students' authority over the uses of their own
writing" and make them feel "guilty until proven innocent," according to
a draft position statement.

"There's a lot of debate out there," said Rebecca Ingalls, a University
of Tampa English professor who has analyzed Turnitin. "These students
are giving their work to a company that's making money and they are
getting no compensation."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/
AR2006092101800.html?nav=rss_education

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