Turnitin Sucks :: plagiarism police

Turnitin SucksIts with a great deal of interest that Ive been following the most recent ruction in the blogoshpere about Turnitin.com and about whether or not higher ed is taking the proverbial low ground in the ethical battles by the increasing use of Turnitin. It is my opinion and always has been that there is something fundamentally hurt with the whole process of requiring students to turn in their work to the plagiarisation police.I think this graphic from the Honk Kong Polytechnic University is especially humorous. I didnt train their permission to show it on my site so I created my let sign at the Ronald McHummer site.About 2-3 years ago we had the conversation 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 off by the same things that have always bothered me about the deal. The arguments at that cadence against using Turnitin appear to still be the main arguments. 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 merely infringing my copyright, but that they are doing so for commercial profit. If they want to make funds from storing my paper in a database, they should pay me for a license. (EricSmith comment on Slashdot)Why are we violating authorial virtue to teach students that violating authorial integrity is wrong? (by Bob, first comment)can shift attention away from principle students how to avoid plagiarism in the first place. In Defining and Avoiding piracy 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 justify the dodge of responsible teaching methods.I find it more than a check ironic, that this company works with WebCT and Blackboard, who argue that one should use Cour se Managment parcel to protect students privacy (alah FERPA) when turnitin.com fundamentally violates students rights. (Dave, Sept. 7, 1805)Its just like music composition. People with resembling music education backgrounds end up producing similar music. Thats just how it is. Are you seriously going to argue that the standard educational texts HAVENT been mined for every bloody original idea they contain a thousand times over? (read the whole comment by Cadallin)