2008 Woodie Awards
Turnitin.com gets mixed reception from faculty
David Spain '08 and Kelleen O'Fallon '07
Issue date: 10/10/07 Section: News
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With the rise of the Internet, the days of students paying someone $50 to write their research paper are pretty much over. It's now much easier. Students can copy large sections of material directly from the Internet and paste them into their work, passing them off as their own, or even buy papers from Web sites.
To combat academic dishonesty in a technological age, many Saint Joseph's faculty members rely on Turnitin.com, an Internet service that Saint Joseph's subscribes to that scans student papers for plagiarism. The service compares student papers to those housed within its database of previously submitted student papers as well as to information on the Internet, according to the service's website.
"Turnitin is really good for when people grab stuff from the Internet or from an article," said James Caccamo, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology and regular user of the site. "It's a useful tool for discovering certain kinds of plagiarism."
When the service was brought to Saint Joseph's in 2001, it was not as a response to a rise in academic dishonesty but rather a change in its forms, said Bill McDevitt, Associate Professor of Management and chair of Saint Joseph's Academic Honesty Board.
"More and more students were using the Internet and it was becoming more difficult for faculty to identify inappropriately copied sources," he said.
But Turnitin has caused controversy at educational institutions throughout the country, according to national news reports. Students at McLean High School in Fairfax County, Va., for instance, are protesting its storage of student papers, claiming that the service shouldn't profit from student work, according to an article published on March 13, 2007 by Business Week Online.
Since Saint Joseph's subscribed to the service, there have been no student complaints, said Peggy Allen, Academic Manager of the Computing Services for the Haub School of Business and University Turnitin administrator.
To combat academic dishonesty in a technological age, many Saint Joseph's faculty members rely on Turnitin.com, an Internet service that Saint Joseph's subscribes to that scans student papers for plagiarism. The service compares student papers to those housed within its database of previously submitted student papers as well as to information on the Internet, according to the service's website.
"Turnitin is really good for when people grab stuff from the Internet or from an article," said James Caccamo, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Theology and regular user of the site. "It's a useful tool for discovering certain kinds of plagiarism."
When the service was brought to Saint Joseph's in 2001, it was not as a response to a rise in academic dishonesty but rather a change in its forms, said Bill McDevitt, Associate Professor of Management and chair of Saint Joseph's Academic Honesty Board.
"More and more students were using the Internet and it was becoming more difficult for faculty to identify inappropriately copied sources," he said.
But Turnitin has caused controversy at educational institutions throughout the country, according to national news reports. Students at McLean High School in Fairfax County, Va., for instance, are protesting its storage of student papers, claiming that the service shouldn't profit from student work, according to an article published on March 13, 2007 by Business Week Online.
Since Saint Joseph's subscribed to the service, there have been no student complaints, said Peggy Allen, Academic Manager of the Computing Services for the Haub School of Business and University Turnitin administrator.
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