Comment From the creators of Turnitin.com (Score 5, Informative) 394
1. We respect all of your comments. We stand behind the free flow of information.
2. Turnitin was created by educators to solve an important problem in academia: intellectual property theft (see #10, below). .
3. The technology was developed at U.C. Berkeley as a tool to allow students to Peer Review each others' manuscripts (see BARRIE, J.M. AND PRESTI, D.E. The WWW as an instructional tool. Science, 274(5286): 371-372, 1996.). The original idea concerned collaborative learning. .
4. Turnitin should only be used as a deterrent to plagiarism and not as a tool to catch cheaters (in fact, I believe the latter to be a misuse of our technology). .
5. Turnitin only 'sources-out' a manuscript. It does not determine whether or not a paper was actually plagiarized; that is left to the faculty member. .
6. Turnitin helps an instructor to insure that their students are all playing by the same set of rules (not unlike a football or basketball referee). It levels the playing field. .
7. Technology similar to Turnitin has been used in computer science departments (whether you know it or not) for over a decade. .
8. All work submitted to Turnitin remains the property of the author. .
9. According to the Fair Use clause of the US Copyright Act, Turnitin makes a transformative use (and therefore Fair Use) use of the original work which does not violate the intellectual property rights of the author. .
10. Final thought, "A person's published words are the product of a great deal of training, thought, and effort. To represent another's thoughts as one's own is at best misrepresentation. Plagiarism is a substitute for writing, and so a substitute for thinking. At worst, it is theft of intellectual property, and therefore represents a serious challenge to the integrity of academia" - Dr. Michael M. Todd.
We respect the ideas and concerns discussed in this Slashdot thread.
