Comments on: Students turn on Turnitin http://technosavvy.org/2007/03/30/students-turn-on-turnitin/ Great teaching and learning with technology Mon, 25 Oct 2010 10:22:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Turnitin.com | effectivedesign.org http://technosavvy.org/2007/03/30/students-turn-on-turnitin/comment-page-1/#comment-46299 Turnitin.com | effectivedesign.org Mon, 11 Feb 2008 11:59:16 +0000 http://technosavvy.org/2007/03/30/students-turn-on-turnitin/#comment-46299 [...] Oklahoma State has recently bought Turnitin for the campus, I found this blog post (and accompanying article) to be interesting. It seems that some students are suing Turnitin for [...] [...] Oklahoma State has recently bought Turnitin for the campus, I found this blog post (and accompanying article) to be interesting. It seems that some students are suing Turnitin for [...]

]]> By: Tom http://technosavvy.org/2007/03/30/students-turn-on-turnitin/comment-page-1/#comment-45111 Tom Mon, 02 Apr 2007 03:30:08 +0000 http://technosavvy.org/2007/03/30/students-turn-on-turnitin/#comment-45111 In my mind, once you start calling people "theives" and saying "theft" and "stealing" every other word the conversation ends because students stop listening. It works the same way with teachers I might add. You can't start off calling someone names and then expect them to listen to you with respect. I'm not saying students should be able to copy chunks of information at will without citations but IMO Marcus's comment certainly comes across as really hostile (and somewhat condescending) and that tactic has been tried for a long time without success. It's time to go another route. Turnitin is not a teaching tool. It's more like a policing tool. If you want to plagiarize or use other people's work, you'd just run the work through the service to see if it picks up things and alter it slightly until it doesn't pick it up. Maybe you could call that teaching. I think the goal should be to create some more original paper topics or maybe not use the same prompts for 10 year stretches. Those actions seem like they'd do a lot more to create learning than relying on a system like this. I'd also like to see the professiorial backlash if they were forced to participate in a similar system in order to have their work published. Tom In my mind, once you start calling people “theives” and saying “theft” and “stealing” every other word the conversation ends because students stop listening. It works the same way with teachers I might add. You can’t start off calling someone names and then expect them to listen to you with respect.

I’m not saying students should be able to copy chunks of information at will without citations but IMO Marcus’s comment certainly comes across as really hostile (and somewhat condescending) and that tactic has been tried for a long time without success. It’s time to go another route.

Turnitin is not a teaching tool. It’s more like a policing tool. If you want to plagiarize or use other people’s work, you’d just run the work through the service to see if it picks up things and alter it slightly until it doesn’t pick it up. Maybe you could call that teaching.

I think the goal should be to create some more original paper topics or maybe not use the same prompts for 10 year stretches. Those actions seem like they’d do a lot more to create learning than relying on a system like this. I’d also like to see the professiorial backlash if they were forced to participate in a similar system in order to have their work published.

Tom

]]> By: Marcus G http://technosavvy.org/2007/03/30/students-turn-on-turnitin/comment-page-1/#comment-45110 Marcus G Fri, 30 Mar 2007 17:29:35 +0000 http://technosavvy.org/2007/03/30/students-turn-on-turnitin/#comment-45110 Instructors need to use Turnitin as a teaching tool, which many do. Allow the students to use the tool to do a self-check of their papers so they can see if they inadvertently copied something without proper citation. Plagiarism is a huge problem in schools. How many papers are turned in each day with stolen intellectual property? Some kids, and some adults, can't even spell plagiarism, let alone know how to prevent it. Some don't care because they steal music off of the internet too. Instructors need to use Turnitin as a teaching tool, which many do. Allow the students to use the tool to do a self-check of their papers so they can see if they inadvertently copied something without proper citation. Plagiarism is a huge problem in schools. How many papers are turned in each day with stolen intellectual property? Some kids, and some adults, can’t even spell plagiarism, let alone know how to prevent it. Some don’t care because they steal music off of the internet too.

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