[Air-l] turnitin issue

[elw at stderr.org]

> did nothing to stop it.  The parallel here would be if a school required 
> students to accept accept use of TurnItIn - which is a legitimate action 
> (consider the requirement to sign a non-compete or non-disclosure 
> agreement as a legitimate requirement for employment, or an agreement to 
> sign an academic honesty statement) - in order to be part of the student 
> body.

These are not nearly parallel.

You're asking students to send their papers to a for-profit company *not 
of their own choosing* for assessment.  That's radically different from 
asking them to sign an academic honesty statement, and certainly different 
from the legal mire that is non-compete and non-disclosure agreements.

Schools already provide a legitimate plagiarism detection tool - they're 
called "faculty".  ;-)  [If those faculty don't feel that they're able to 
detect plagiarism - well, that's another track of discussion.]

--e