out of journal articles, since I think those are easy to catch. Undergraduates or even graduate students just don’t
write at the same level as polished, professionally published authors, so when I see an extremely
well-written, jargonized student paper, red flags are raised.
The papers I’m worried about are those that are written by students, and sound like they are
written by students, but are really downloaded from from a research paper website. Those I can’t catch without
something like turnitin.com.
Wally Dixon
On 1/10/03 10:03 AM, "Marie Helweg-Larsen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I have found it to have some usefulness but definitely with some hassles. The
most important limitation (for most of the types of papers I assign) is that
it will not detect copying from journal articles or books. So you have to
continue to do plagiarism control the old fashioned way here (have them turn
in the sources or whatever). If you mostly have students do research papers,
turnitin would not be much use.
I think it has some benefits. First, I think there is quite a bit of
plagiarism from papers from previous semesters. Even if assignments are
changed, there is probably still overlap (especially when students are allowed
to chose their own topics). Turnitin can handle this type of plagiarism very
well but only if you routinely have students submit all their papers to
turnitin. I used to do that - I simply had students submit a electronic copy
(which was uploaded to turnitin by a staff person) and a regular paper copy
(which I graded as usual). Turnitin produces a very easy to use report.
Second, if you do any assignments in which webpages could be helpful, turitin
can be a useful resource. Although Google may do the same, I'm simply not
going to check every word of every paper. With the uploading of all papers,
this is what turnitin does. Third, students pay very careful attention when
you tell them about this resource. They don't know what it does exactly or
what it might do in the future, so I think there is some significant
preventive value even for the type of plagiarism that it can't really check
(such as journal articles).
In the end, is it worth it? I have reviewed quite a bit of the cheating
literature and I think that instead of software you need an attitude change
among students and also faculty. This kind of ethos change takes a whole lot
more work than buying software.
Marie
Marie Helweg-Larsen
Associate Professor
Dickinson College
>===== Original Message From "Stephen Black" =====
>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
>
>______________________________________________________________
>Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470
>Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661
>Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7
>Canada
>
>Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
>TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at
>http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips
>_________________________________________________________
>
>
>
>
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