Stop and think before submitting to Turnitin
For most students, the start of the school year is quite exciting meeting new friends and having group sharing activities completing projects. However, students at the University of Toronto were not so excited with class because they do worry about submitting their research papers with Turnitin. This online plagiarism detector has been used by the university to detect duplicate or copied phrases that were not properly cited. Although this electronic resource accurately scans research papers for similarity in text, it automatically archives a copy of the paper to its company database. This means that all papers submitted to their system for plagiarism check will be stored in their database without asking the permission or giving users the option to agree with the standard procedure.
Papers submitted to the company since 1996 were saved in their database. If someone submits a paper containing high frequency of uncited similar phrases, it will be flagged as possible plagiarized paper. Even though Turnitin has been technically and systematically helping instructors to find similar or plagiarized sentences, it has been facing controversy over stealing and unethical storing of scanned papers to its database. Students were undoubtedly having second thoughts on submitting their research papers to Turnitin free for plagiarism check. Turnitin has made its reputation popular as a plagiarism crime stopper in the past. Recently, it has been increasingly popular as unethically stealing intellectual property rights from students.
Although about 70 to 80% of students in the post secondary institution admitted having cheated at least once, the presumption of catching cheaters could still be unjustified. Students argued this presumption creates and promotes negative learning environment. This reduces the bonding relationship between students and instructors. Furthermore, this motivates practicing rule enforcement and mechanical system of implementing penalties and surveillance. This also avoids teachers to become creative in giving assignments that are difficult to plagiarize.