Returning students’ right to access, choice and notice: a proposed code of ethics for instructors using Turnitin

Abstract

This paper identifies the ethical issues associated with college instructors' use of plagiarism detection software (PDS), specifically the Turnitin program. It addresses the pros and cons of using such software in higher education, arguing that its use is justified on the basis that it increases institutional trust, and demonstrating that two common criticisms of such software are not universally valid. An analysis of the legal issues surrounding Turnitin, however, indicates that the way it is designed and operates raises some ethical issues because it denies students notice, access and choice about the treatment of their personal information. The paper concludes with a set of guidelines for instructors using Turnitin in the classroom.

Creation and Use of Intellectual Works in the Academic Environment: Students' Knowledge About Copyright and Copyleft

“…Do they know the basic characteristics and possibilities of the copyleft-type licenses? Most studies about these issues have focused almost exclusively on one consequence, plagiarism (Townley & Parsell, 2004;Koehler, 2008;Rettinger & Kramer, 2009;Saunders, 2010;Wheeler & Anderson, 2010;Vanacker, 2011;Albitz, 2013;Gunnarsson, Kulesza, & Pettersson, 2014;Strittmatter & Bratton, 2014). Fewer efforts are dedicated to determining the levels of knowledge and depths of misunderstanding that students have today.…”

Cultivating undergraduates' plagiarism avoidance knowledge and skills with an online tutorial system

“…Accordingly, an increasing number of online writing tutorial systems have emerged that aim to provide support for students' writing with regard to plagiarism avoidance (Howard, ; Sun, ), including Turnitin and CrossCheck. Turnitin is used in more than 120 countries in 10 different languages (Stapleton, ; Sun, ; Vanacker, ) and serves to (a) check students' originality in their papers, (b) conduct Web‐based peer reviews, and (c) provide digital grading feedback on students' written works. On the other hand, CrossCheck is a not‐for‐profit system that helps avoid plagiarism in academic and professional contexts.…”

“…In the development of academic writing, educators aim to foster students' ability to interrelate different source articles in a piece of writing (Liu, Lin, Kou, & Wang, ; Pecorari & Shaw, ) to frame research questions, support arguments, and establish a specialized area in existing research. In the international academic community, however, plagiarism in English writing has been widely recognized as a serious problem (Liu, Lo, & Wang, ; Li, ; Lo, Liu, & Wang, ; Sun, ; Vanacker, ). Plagiarism is defined as “the reproduction of source materials in terms of both ideas and language without sufficient attribution to the source” (Sun, , p. 399) and has been called an act of “intellectual theft” and “academic dishonesty” (Gullifer & Tyson, ) and even a “heinous crime” in the academic community (Pecorari, ).…”

The use of software tools and autonomous bots against vandalism: eroding Wikipedia’s moral order?

“…In his discussion about the morality of using Turnitin software against plagiarism, Vanacker (2011) argues that 'fair information principles' would require the institution to develop a 'code of ethics' for instructors in the classroom. His discussion, however, mainly revolves around the use of personal data and concerns of privacy.…”