One additional thing about turnitin to add to Doug's convincing (well,
to me, anyway) response to Rob: at the conference on plagiarism in
Maine where I delivered the original version of the Newletter piece in
the last issue, I heard an impressive presentation by Charles Cronin
of the Columbia University Law Library, in which he documented, in
case after case, blatant misreprentations of the legal and moral
status of various things it called "plagiarism" on the turnitin.com
Web site. It convinced me that it isn't just a question of their heart
being in the right place but I disagree with them. This seems pretty
clearly to be about cash (leaving aside the ethics of the way they
treat student texts).
There's also a pretty good site about this whole issue that Nick
Carbone (who also spoke at that conference) has put up for Bedford-St.
Martin's, called "Turnitin.com, a Pedagogic Placebo for Plagiarism."
It's here:
http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/technotes/techtiparchive/ttip060501.htm
I recommend it.
-- Russ
St. Thomas University
http://www.stu.ca/~hunt/
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