The Daily Tar Heel
URL: http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2012/02/turnitin_software
Current Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 12:37:03 -0400
Turnitin software
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Tools
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TO THE EDITOR:
In light of Ryan Passer’s letter, “Turnitin will only create fear for students,” students should bear in mind that Turnitin is only a tool. If UNC decides to adopt plagiarism auto-detection systems, the Honor Court may consider evidence from a source like Turnitin.
Ultimately, however, determining whether a student has violated the Honor Code is not the work of a machine.
It is the job of a panel of the accused student’s peers to determine whether “plagiarism in the form of deliberate or reckless representation of another’s words, thoughts, or ideas as one’s own without attribution” has occurred.
Automatic detection may increase the number of cases that get investigated and heard — but if “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” is not presented that the plagiarism was “deliberate or reckless,” UNC’s Honor Court would have no choice but to find the accused student not guilty.
All quotations cited in the above paragraph come from UNC’s Instrument of Student Governance. It is available in its entirety at instrument.unc.edu.
Scott Neidich
Graduate Honor Court
First-year Ph.D. candidate
Biochemical nutrition
Andrew Baird
Chairman, Graduate Honor Court
J.D. candidate, ’13
UNC School of Law
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1 comment
It is interesting that UNC would even consider purchasing software as unreliable as this. If professors wish, there are free repositories of algorithms that attempt to do the same thing, but on the whole there is no software that can accurately detect plagiarism.
Security researcher Bruce Schneier makes an excellent point in his article about Turnitin: “Turnitin is playing both sides of the fence, helping instructors identify plagiarists while helping plagiarists avoid detection. It is akin to selling security systems to stores while allowing shoplifters to test whether putting tagged goods into bags lined with aluminum thwart the detectors.”
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