[Air-l] my experience with plagiarism and turnitin

[Barry Wellman]

I asked my question in good faith.

I'm kinda amazed at how many people did NOT answer my question (about
precedent re Turnitin), but treated it as a projective test.

I am also amazed at some of the responses which basically say:
"The way I teach, no one ever plagiarizes."
Perhaps they are teaching in an alternative universe to mine.

I have been teaching for 42 years, and I do most of the things I know of
to avoid plagiarism: conferences, outlines, ask for raw work to be
available.

Yet, cases still crop up. Schmucks happen.

In situations where I sense plagarism, I would welcome turnitin: not as a
mass produced test, but as a way of acquiring more data. (Note that I did
not say "information", much less "knowledge"). And then I would ask the
student to come in and chat, bringing raw material, etc. And always with
someone else in the room.

Now, I have direct personal experience that Turnitin can be horribly
misleading, so please folks never treat as definitive.

A young colleague of mine sent a book chapter off to an inexperienced
editor, the editor ran it through Turnitin, and without checking futher,
accused the colleague of plagiarism. The colleague came to me in tears.

What had really happened is that the colleague had included a bunch of
quotations from prior publications, properly cited and indented, but all
Turnitin does is show that the same quotation had been originally
published before. (Of course.)

When this was pointed out to the editor, she retracted her accusation,
altho she never had the courtesy to apologize.

This is a totally true story (as all of mine are), but the colleague has
asked me not to use her name. Frankly, I think the editor should have been
run out of her university for malevolent incompetence.
(But if malevolent competence grounds, we'd lose 50% of university
administrators).

Anyway, thanks for your advice, which I have passed on to the folks
actively involved in this particular situation.

Next year, I will insist, as per Toronto policy, that Turnitin be used.
I will also do a new one, insisting that I not be videoed, cameraphoned or
audio-ed, unless there is a disability situation. I don't want to be
YouTubed without my permission.

And so it goes...

 Barry Wellman
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  Barry Wellman   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology   NetLab Director
  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
  455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
        for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
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