Cheating Services and Copyright

[kniedzw]

So, in my daily web-browsing, I found this Washington Post article linked from Slashdot. The short form is that a few high school students are suing Turnitin for copyright infringement, and I think they have a legitimate argument

Comments

[brisance]

The students went to the trouble of building this as a test case, so I'll be interested to see what comes of it. I don't know that Turnitin itself tries to claim fair use - what they have instead is a reasonably draconian ToS.

Having sat through a demo, and currently involved in seeing if anyone at work wants to trial it, I would say that Turnitin is very, very clear on the point that their intention is to be an evaluation tool to assist the prof, not to be the folks slapping on the handcuffs. They actually do know that their algorithm isn't good enough to be a guarantee.

I'm a little surprised the students aren't going after the school, since Turnitin doesn't fail anybody - the school that demands submit to Turnitin is the one failing the student or threatening to (and Turnitin demands indemnification). Admittedly, there's something of the gun manufacturers' argument - guns don't kill people...but where the heck is the instructor's ability to use judgement being mentioned in this lawsuit?

As a side note, some students plagiarize because they're lazy. But a bunch of them just flat don't understand the concept. I know this because I was at the desk the other day, and I got to watch a student nervously listen to a fellow student rant that a prof had accused her of plagiarism. Both the other student and I understood that she had done a combination of plagiarism in one instance and failing to cite her references in another, but she was absolutely convinced that she'd done nothing wrong and was huffing that she shouldn't have to cite "stuff everybody knows" as she, in the same breath, acknowledged that she learned all that stuff in the prof's class. She'd also never heard of citing personal communications. Ugh!

[kniedzw]

Well, technically, the copyright argument couldn't be made against the school, though it certainly can against Turnitin. ...so that's in their favor.

As to spreading the word about plagiarism, I agree. It's distressing how few students actually have a comprehensive understanding of academic honesty and citations. Of course, when you're caught red-handed, it's sort of natural to start spouting justifications, even if you ultimately recognize them to be bullshit. Anything to deflect blame from yourself.

[ratmmjess]

Ack...glrk...must not...explode.

I teach students about plagiarism and proper citation. I tell them the differences between omission and comission. I tell them about intent versus carelessness, and how to properly give credit.

And they don't pay attention. They tune me out, they talk to each other while I'm talking, they play on the computer--they ignore me, openly, and pointedly.

And then, like the student mentioned here, they complain when they are caught inadvertently plagiarising.

Students are told about proper citation and all the rest. In my experience, they just can't be arsed to pay attention.