Turnitin Sucks :: plagiarism police

Turnitin SucksIts with a great deal of interest that Ive been following the most late uproar in the blogoshpere about Turnitin.com and about whether or not high ed is winning the proverbial low ground in the honest battles by the increasing uptake of Turnitin. It is my opinion and always has been that there is whateverthing basically wrong with the whole process of requiring students to turn in their work to the piracy police.I think this graphic from the Honk Kong Polytechnic University is especially humorous. I didnt have their permission to show it on my site so I created my own sign at the Ronald McHummer site.About 2-3 years ago we had the parley on campus about whether we should license (or is it subscribe to) the Turnitin service. Of course there were some people who were in favor of it, but the majority was put arrive at by the same things that have always bothered me about the deal. The arguments at that time against using Turnitin appear to still be the main argum ents. In no particular order, they includeI am currently taking a course that requires me to submit my papers to Turnitin. My objection to Turnitin is that they are not only infringing my copyright, but that they are doing so for commercial profit. If they want to check money from storing my paper in a database, they should pay me for a license. (EricSmith causerie on Slashdot)Why are we violating authorial integrity to teach students that violating authorial integrity is wrong? (by Bob, first comment)can shift attention off from teaching students how to avoid plagiarism in the first place. In formation and Avoiding Plagiarism The WPA Statement on Best Practices, the Council of Writing Program Administrators urges teachers to use plagiarism detection services cautiously, for they should never be used to disembarrass the avoidance of responsible teaching methods.I find it more than a bit ironic, that this company works with WebCT and Blackboard, who argue that one should use a rgumentation Managment software to protect students privacy (alah FERPA) when turnitin.com fundamentally violates students rights. (Dave, Sept. 7, 1805)Its just worry music composition. People with similar music education backgrounds end up producing similar music. Thats just how it is. Are you seriously going to argue that the criterion educational texts HAVENT been mined for every bloody original idea they ensure a thousand times over? (read the whole comment by Cadallin)