Turnitin

Type of business	Subsidiary
Online SaaSeditor
Founded	1997
Headquarters	2101 Webster Street Suite #1800 Oakland, California 94612, United States
Area served	Worldwide
Industry	Education
Website	turnitin.com
Commercial	Yes
Registration	Yes
Users
Content licence	Proprietary

Turnitin is a commercial, Internet-based plagiarism detection service launched in 1997. Universities and high schools typically buy licenses to use the software as a service (SaaS) website, which checks submitted documents against its database and the content of other websites with the aim of identifying plagiarism. Results can identify similarities with existing sources, and can also be used in formative assessment to help students learn to avoid plagiarism and improve their writing.^[1]

Students may be required to submit work to Turnitin as a requirement of taking a certain course or class. The software has been a source of controversy, with some students refusing to submit, arguing that requiring submission implies a presumption of guilt. Some critics have alleged that use of this proprietary software violates educational privacy as well as international intellectual-property laws, and exploits students' works for commercial purposes by permanently storing them in Turnitin's privately held database.

Turnitin's parent company, iParadigms LLC, runs the informational website Plagiarism.org and also offers a similar plagiarism-detection service for newspaper editors and book and magazine publishers called iThenticate. Other tools included with the Turnitin suite are GradeMark (online grading and feedback) and PeerMark (peer-review services). Turnitin released the WriteCycle Suite on February 3, 2009, which bundles the Originality Checking service with its GradeMark online grading tools and PeerMark tools.^[jargon] Turnitin released Turnitin2 on September 4, 2010, dropping the 'WriteCycle' nomenclature.^[2]

• 1Functionality
• 2Reception

Functionality[edit]

The Turnitin software checks for potentially unoriginal content by comparing submitted papers to several databases using a proprietary algorithm. It scans its own databases and also has licensing agreements with large academic proprietary databases.

Student-paper database[edit]

The essays submitted by students are stored in a database used to check for plagiarism. This prevents one student from using another student's paper, by identifying matching text between papers. In addition to student papers, the database contains a copy of the publicly accessible Internet, with the company using a web crawler to continually add content to Turnitin's archive. It also contains commercial and/or copyrighted pages from books, newspapers, and journals.

Classroom integration[edit]

Students typically upload their papers directly to the service for teachers to access. Teachers may also submit student papers to Turnitin.com as individual files, by bulk upload, or as a ZIP file. Teachers can also set assignment-analysis options so that students can review the system's 'originality reports' before they finalize their submission. A peer-review option is also available.

Some virtual learning environments can be configured to support Turnitin, so that student assignments can be automatically submitted for analysis. Blackboard, Moodle, ANGEL, Instructure, Desire2Learn, Pearson Learning Studio, Sakai, and Studywiz integrate in some way with the software.^[3]

Reception[edit]

Privacy[edit]

The Student Union at Dalhousie University has criticized the use of Turnitin at Canadian universities because the American government may be able to access the submitted papers and personal information in the database under the USA PATRIOT Act.^[4]Mount Saint Vincent University became the first Canadian university to ban Turnitin's service partly because of implications of the Act.^{[5][full citation needed]}

Copyright-violation concerns[edit]

Lawyers for the company claim that student work is covered under the theory of implied license to evaluate, since it would be pointless to write the essays if they were not meant to be graded. That implied license, the lawyers argue, thus grants Turnitin permission to copy, reproduce and preserve the works. The company's lawyers further claim that dissertations and theses also carry with them an implied permission to archive in a publicly accessible collection such as a university library.^[6]

University of Minnesota Law Schoolprofessor Dan Burk countered that the company's use of the papers may not meet the fair-use test for several reasons:

• The company copies the entire paper, not just a portion
• Students' work is often original, interpretive and creative rather than just a compilation of established facts
• Turnitin is a commercial enterprise^[7]

When a group of students filed suit against Turnitin on that basis, in Vanderhye et al. v. iParadigms LLC, the district court found the practice fell within fair use; on appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed.^[8]

Presumption of guilt[edit]

Some students argue that requiring them to submit papers to Turnitin creates a presumption of guilt, which may violate scholastic disciplinary codes and applicable local laws and judicial practice. Some teachers and professors support this argument when attempting to discourage their schools from joining Turnitin.^{[9][full citation needed]}

WriteCheck[edit]

iParadigms, the company behind Turnitin, runs another commercial website called WriteCheck, where students must pay a fee to have a paper tested against the database used by Turnitin, in order to determine whether or not that paper will be detected as plagiarism when the student submit that paper to the main Turnitin website through the account provided by the school. The economist Alex Tabarrok has complained that Turnitin's systems 'are warlords who are arming both sides in this plagiarism war'.^[10]

Litigation[edit]

In one well-publicized dispute over mandatory Turnitin submissions, Jesse Rosenfeld, a student at McGill University declined, in 2004, to submit his academic work to Turnitin. The University Senate eventually ruled that Rosenfeld's assignments were to be graded without using the service.^[11] The following year, another McGill student, Denise Brunsdon, refused to submit her assignment to Turnitin.com and won a similar ruling from the Senate Committee on Student Grievances.^[12]

A few other Canadian universities are currently^[when?] in the process of either total or partial ban of this service. On March 6, 2006, the Senate at Mount Saint Vincent University in Nova Scotia prohibited the submission of students' academic work to Turnitin.com and any software that requires students' work to become part of an external database where other parties might have access to it.^[13] This decision was granted after the students' union alerted the university community of their legal and privacy concerns associated with the use of Turnitin.com and other anti-plagiarism devices that profit from students' academic work. This was the first campus-wide ban of its kind in Canada,^[14] following decisions by Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Stanford not to use Turnitin.^[15]

At Ryerson University in Toronto, students may decide whether to submit their work to Turnitin.com or make alternate arrangements with an instructor.^[16]Similar policies are in place at Brock University in Saint Catharines.^[17]

On March 27, 2007, with the help of an intellectual property attorney, two students from McLean High School in Virginia (with assistance from the Committee For Students' Rights) and two students attending Desert Vista High School in Phoenix, Arizona, filed suit in United States Circuit Court (Eastern District, Alexandria Division) alleging copyright infringement by iParadigms, Turnitin's parent company.^[18] Nearly a year later, Judge Claude M. Hilton granted summary judgment on the students' complaint in favor of iParadigms/Turnitin,^[19] because they had accepted the click-wrap agreement on the Turnitin website. The students appealed the ruling,^[20] and on April 16, 2009, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed Judge Hilton's judgment in favor of iParadigms/Turnitin.^[21]

References[edit]

1. ^Christopher Ireland; John English (October 2011). 'Let Them Plagiarise: Developing Academic Writing in a Safe Environment'. ResearchGate. doi:10.18552/joaw.v1i1.10. (PDF Download available.)
2. ^'Archived copy'. Archived from the original on 2010-07-04. Retrieved 2010-07-07.CS1 maint: Archived copy as title (link)
3. ^'Turnitin Integrations'. iParadigms, LLC. 2012. Retrieved July 11, 2012.
4. ^McDiarmid, Jess (2006-03-16). 'DSU takes on Turnitin.com'. Gazette. Dalhousie University. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
5. ^Halfnight, Drew; Kristina Jarvis; Josh Visser (2006-11-15). 'Turnitin risks privacy'. Excalibur Online. York University. Archived from the original on 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
6. ^Foley & Lardner, Id., pp. 3-5
7. ^Foster, Andrea L.; May 17, 2002; Plagiarism-Detection Tool Creates Legal Quandary; The Chronicle of Higher Education; retrieved September 29, 2006
8. ^A.V. et al. v. iParadigms, LLC, 562 F.3d 630 (4th Cir. 2009)
9. ^Carbone, Nick (2001). 'Turnitin.com, a Pedagogic Placebo for Plagiarism'. Archived from the original on October 4, 2006. Retrieved 2007-01-28.
10. ^Murphy, Elizabeth (2011-09-09). 'Plagiarism software WriteCheck troubles some educators'. USA Today. Retrieved 2011-10-15.
11. ^'McGill student wins fight over anti-cheating website'. CBC News. 2004-01-16. Archived from the original on March 6, 2005. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
12. ^Churchill, Liam (2005-12-02). 'Students: 2, Turnitin: 0'. McGill Daily. Archived from the original on 2007-05-17. Retrieved 2007-04-15.
13. ^'Minutes of Meeting'(PDF). Mount Saint Vincent University Senate. 2019-01-09. Retrieved 2019-01-09.
14. ^Amarnath, Ravi (2006-03-15). 'Mount St. Vincent bans Turnitin.com'. The Gazette. Archived from the original on 2012-07-30. Retrieved 2011-11-28.
15. ^Osellame, Julia (2006-04-04). 'University opts not to 'Turnitin''. The Daily Princetonian. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
16. ^'Turnitin.com Information for Students'. Ryerson University. 2006-12-05. Archived from the original on 2012-09-30. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
17. ^'Brock Academic Integrity Policy'. Brock University. 2013-10-03. Retrieved 2016-03-08.
18. ^Vanderhye, R. (2007-04-16). 'A.V., et. al. v. iParadigms, LLC: Amended Complaint for Copyright Infringement'(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 2009-03-20. Retrieved 2009-03-20.
19. ^Hilton, Claude (2008). 'Memorandum Opinion'(PDF). United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2010-07-05.
20. ^Barakat, Matthew (2008-04-28). 'Students appeal ruling favoring plagiarism detection service'. Boston.com. Archived from the original on 2008-12-06. Retrieved 2008-04-29.
21. ^Wilkinson, Motz, Traxler (2009-04-16). 'Appellate Decision'(PDF). United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2009-04-19.CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)

External links[edit]

A new study published this week by plagiarism and originality detection service Turnitin looks at high schools and how the use of their service has effected the amount of plagiarism that is detected over time.

They did this by looking at the papers submitted to the service and counting the ones at that had more than 50% unoriginal content. Then, starting with the first “true usage start year”, which is a full calendar year that reflects a minimum of 10 percent of the lifetime submissions by the school (rather than just a year the service was being tested out), they created a baseline that they then compared to the years that came after it.

The results are striking, nationwide, there is an initial increate in the amount of plagiarism detected, rising a few percent over the course of the first two years of use. However, after that the rates begin to fall quickly and, by the end of the eighth year there’s a 33% drop in the level of unoriginal writing seen.

The results, which were broken apart by state, showed that 43 of the 50 states showed reduction in the amount of plagiarism detected over the time period.

Considering that most evidence indicates plagiarism is on the rise, the study definitely indicates that plagiarism detection software has an impact on student behavior. However, it also shows that not all uses of the software are equal and that, if a school wants to get the maximum benefit from a tool like Turnitin, it needs to be committed to it as more than just a quick fix.

The Basics of the Study

The basic concept of the study is fairly straightforward. Turnitin looked at the first full year of usage of the service and determined the percentage of papers that were unoriginal (papers with more than 50% unoriginal content). Then, using that percentage as a baseline, looked at the expected amount of unoriginal submissions in the future and then compared that to the actual amount found.

The study is careful not to provide any figures that directly compare the states to one another. It does this by not providing the baseline amount of plagiarism. Instead, it only provides the change against that baseline. Therefore, there’s no way with this data to determine which states have the highest or lowest amount of plagiarism, which would likely be unfair as Turnitin is not used evenly across the states.

Initially, 21 states saw an increase in unoriginal papers in the second year. This raised the national aggregate average to +3.6%, indicating an initial rise in the detection of unoriginal work. However, after that initial bump, the data began to trend downward, reaching an aggregate total of 33.4% by the end of year eight.

However, that reduction was not uniform. Some states, like Massachusetts, saw a massive drop in detection rates (83% in Massachusetts’ case). Deleware, however, saw a a steady increase in the amount of unoriginal papers detected, culminating in a 285% increase by year eight.

The results also fluctuated wildly in some cases. Alaska, for example, initially saw a 23.9% increase in detection but then it dropped to 25.4% below the baseline only to rocket up to 151% above it in two additional years and then drop back to 20% below it by year seven, the last year available in the state.

These fluctuations were most common in states with low populations, such as Alaska and, to a lesser degree, Montana, indicating they might be cause by a relatively small number of unoriginal essays throwing off the averages.

Larger states, such as California, Texas and New York, followed a much more consistent arc. Either rising initially and then falling or falling consistently through the time period.

In fact, all of the eight most populous states saw drops in the amount of unoriginal writing detected.

However, it’s the aggregate data that presents the clearest picture of the data and, there, schools saw an average reduction in unoriginal work of 5.6% per year.

But while the data is interesting, there are some limitations that do have to be kept in mind.

Concerns and Limitations

The biggest criticism of the study, other than its source and concerns about bias, is the fact that Turnitin failing to detect unoriginal work doesn’t mean that students are not cheating or plagiarizing, but rather, that they may have simply gotten better at hiding their behavior.

But while that may be true in some cases, it seems unlikely that it would justify the entire 33% drop. THough students certainly do seek out ways to circumvent plagiarism detection software, Turnitin is constantly following those techniques and building counter-measures to them.

Since the tricks to defeat Turnitin come and go quickly, it seems unlikely that it could cause an, overall, steady decline in unoriginal work detected over eight years. Though students could be better at rewriting content, defeating it that way isn’t as simple as it seems. Turnitin, like most originally and plagiarism detection services, requires heavy rewriting to ensure it will pass inspection. To do that and make sure the work is high enough quality to get a good grade takes a great deal of work, often more than would be required to create an original one.

In short, it’s a path few students are likely to take.

Still, it doesn’t mean that students aren’t cheating on their essays in other ways, just that they aren’t using copy/paste plagiarism as much. Plagiarism detection tools can only do so much and it falls on the teachers to both make the best use of those tools and to prevent/detect other forms of unethical behavior.

Another limitation to the study is the lack of a control group, a selection of high schools not using Turnitin (or any other service), to see how their rates of unoriginal submissions changed over the year. This makes it difficult to draw any conclusions about the overall effectiveness as there is nothing to compare these results to.

But even with those concerns, there’s a great deal that schools and instructors can glean from these numbers, including some very useful information on what to expect when such tools are introduced to the classroom.

Lessons and Takeaways

For schools and instructors who are either looking at implementing plagiarism detection tools or have done so, there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Plagiarism Detection Software is a Long-Term Commitment: The impact these tools have is gradual. They require teachers learning how to incorporate them into their classrooms and learning how to use them as teaching tools.
2. Not All Use is the Same: Some schools and states seem to see a drastic reduction in unoriginal papers submitted. Others don’t or even see increases. Without a study it’s difficult to know why, but it’s likely a product of how the software is used and integrated into the classroom.
3. It Reduces, But Doesn’t Stop Unoriginal Work: Finally, even in the greatest success stories, such as Massachusetts, there were still unoriginal papers being submitted. While they were far fewer in number, some students still turned in unoriginal work, proving that, even under ideal conditions, there’s no way to completely eliminate the problem.

All in all, teachers need to remember that plagiarism detection tools are just that, tools. They aren’t a replacement for human judgment and they can’t fix the problem for you. They simply help point out similar text and highlight likely cases of plagiarism.

They can be a significant help, both in detecting unethical behavior and in teaching good writing skills, but they can’t do it alone.

Bottom Line

In the end, Turnitin’s study is very interesting and it makes a good case for the use of plagiarism detection tools, including their own, when used correctly.

The most important thing, however, is to continue to teach on the subject of plagiarism and citation. Creating a climate of fear around the topic doesn’t help students learn nor does it do anything other than encourage better cheating.

Instead, it’s better to use the tools not as a means to catch cheaters, but as a means to educate and help students understand how to work with outside content and cite sources correctly.

While that may not be the use many think of when considering adopting such software, it’s the use that does the best service to the students.

Disclosure: I am a paid conslutant for iThenticate, a company that is owned by iParadigms, which also own Turnitin.

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