[Air-l] turnitin issue

[Alexis Turner]

In the sense that an employee/student/etc of a community/school/business signs 
an agreement that may not be in their best interest, but is free to go  
elsewhere if they do not wish to sign, it is exactly the same thing.  Personally 
speaking, I do not believe in random drug testing.  Ergo, I will not join an 
organization in which this is required of me.  Likewise, if a student does not 
wish to use Turnitin, they may attend a different institution.  They are the 
same scenario, provided the employee/student/whathaveyou is apprised of the 
situation in advance of joining the organization.  

And, yes, I would apply your 
term "legal mire" to all of these types of agreements, precisely because their 
moral value is NOT clearly defined.  As this conversation illustrates, 
reasonable, educated people can disagree on the nature of this software, which 
also means that the courts can disagree.  Do not underestimate the issue by 
assuming it is so black and white. 
-Alexis


On Tue, 13 Mar 2007 elw at stderr.org wrote:

::> 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
::