Stephen, Turnitin.com approached our provost's office last summer about an institutional subscription. Since my librarian colleagues and I do related workshops and often are asked by course instructors to help substantiate suspected plagiarism, the university librarian asked me to review the product so she could make a recommendation to the provost regarding an institutional subscription. In a nutshell, I was not impressed. I registered for a trial and submitted numerous verbatim excerpts from a variety of sources, ranging from publicly accessible web pages to books on my shelf to journal articles available only from full-text subscription databases. Quoting from my report summary: "Turnitin.com's ability to identify "suspicious" sources appears to be no better than that of Google or other major Web search engines (or combinations of search engines). This is attributable to the fact that Turnitin.com's search capabilities are limited to its own database, comprised of submitted student papers, and publicly accessible Web sites (i.e., the visible Web). Indeed, Turnitin.com did not match text to actual subscription e-journal collections, to articles provided in full-text form in Pius Library subscription periodical databases, or to widely accessible academic-market monographs. Another point worth noting is that if submitted papers match papers already in its database, Turnitin.com will not provide access to the source documents because of privacy concerns. Thus a faculty member would have to take on faith Turnitin.com�s suggestion that plagiarism may have occurred unless the author of the source document consents to sharing it. Equally important, however, are potential ethical and legal issues attendant to compelling students to submit their papers for analysis and archiving those papers for future use, as well as the fact that Turnitin.com does nothing substantive to educate students or faculty about plagiarism and how to prevent it. Peer review and portfolios [additional Turnitin.com services] can be accomplished readily by other means and should not drive the discussion about a subscription--except to the extent that these features raise concerns regarding student privacy and copyright." Turnitin.com was pretty easy to use. And it did pick up some excerpts from web term paper mills--but I think a lot of them are requiring some sort of registration now, if not a fee, so I'm not certain Turnitin is all that useful where the mills are concerned.
As I recall, the cost was quoted as an annual licensing fee of several hundred dollars plus 50 cents per student FTE. Not a big sum, but not, in my opinion, worth it given the functional and ethical considerations about Turnitin.com. I think the funds could better be used to educate the university community about what plagiarism is and how to prevent it. Some Turnitin.com proponents believe that mere knowledge of its adoption by faculty is sufficient to deter most students from plagiarizing. However, deterrence can be achieved in proactive � rather than reactive � ways that would be (a) just as likely, if not more likely, to identify plagiarized sources rather than lure faculty into complacency (i.e., relying upon a product that doesn�t perform as advertised); (b) less likely to create a climate of distrust among students compelled to contribute their papers for analysis, and (3) more respectful of students� privacy and compliant with copyright. My 2 cents. Miriam ---- Miriam E. Joseph, Ph.D. Reference Librarian Pius XII Memorial Library Saint Louis University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (314) 977-3584 Fax: (314) 977-3108 Stephen Black wrote: > I've just been volunteered by my university to look into the cost- > effectiveness of subscribing to a plagiarism detection service, such > as turnitin.com. > > Naturally, I turn to you people for advice. > > I just browsed their website. It seems to me rather complicated to > make use of, although I suppose it gets easier once you understand > how it works. But I would think this would limit the number of > instructors who would be sufficiently motivated to make use of it in > their courses. > > They offer three options for subscribing: individual, department, or > university-wide. However, they were rather coy on pricing, and you > have to submit a request to get this information (which I haven't yet > done). > > It seems to me that what they claim as their primary function-- > detecting passages plagiarized from the Internet--can be easily > duplicated without all the associated bother and expense just by > typing a few suspected passages in quotes into Google. This works > great, actually. > > So the question is: do they offer anything more? They also maintain a > database of papers submitted to them for analysis. However, my guess > is that this would be valuable only if recyling of papers (handed on > from one student to another) are a concern, and would be effective > only after a university had subscribed and submitted many papers to > their database. > > One benefit I thought they might have would be the ability to look > within the databases of papers-for-sale sites, which Google wouldn't > be able to access. In other words, I thought that perhaps they could > detect purchased papers as well as those freely available on the > Internet. But I don't see that they make this claim so it's probably > not true. > > Bottom line: I'd like to hear (publicly, preferably) opinions on > this, particularly from people who have used turnitin.com or a > similar service, particularly at a small university such as ours. Is > it better than googling? Is it worth the hassle to use it? Is it > worth the price? > > Please tell. > > Stephen --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
