The University announced last week that it will be introducing anti-plagiarism computer software from Turnitin.com. This new software is designed to aid professors in identifying student papers that have been copied or substantially paraphrased from online sources.
The software, which is used by dozen of schools, including the entire University of California system, combs through hundreds of thousands of stored papers located on the Internet and uses search engines to compare each submitted paper to the online material. The software then ranks each paper on a scale of one to five, one indicating a paper that has the least amount of plagiarized content, five the most.
Faculty members will be encouraged to use the software, although an exact timetable and system for implementation have not yet been released yet.
The goal of reducing cheating is an admirable one, but the administration must take certain steps to ensure a fair and effective implementation of the new software, both to maintain students’ trust and to avoid the problems other universities have faced with the software.
First, Turnitin.com should not be expected to replace the Honor Code as an effective means of reducing academic dishonesty. If students are persuaded from cheating solely because they are afraid of being caught by the software, the University has failed at its mission of educating the whole person.
In order to avoid breeding hostility and a sense of distrust on campus, students should be made aware of how and under what circumstances the software will be used. Professors should submit all papers through the software, rather than singling out specific students, and no papers should be put through the software retroactively. That action caused problems at the University of Virginia
Professors should also make sure that their students are well aware of proper citation methods?not just for term papers, but for all written work that requires consulting outside texts. If students still have further questions, professors should make themselves available to answer them.
The new computer software should also not become a substitute for a human’s careful eye. Professors should always double-check every paper that has been submitted through the software, rather than immediately forwarding the student’s work onto the University Honor Council. The Voice submitted 15 papers through Turnitin.com in an attempt to gauge the strengths and weaknesses of the new software. While the software was mostly effective, it was certainly not 100 percent accurate in all cases. Ultimately, the software should be used in conjunction with?not as a complete substitute for?a professor’s own discretion.
