[Air-l] turnitin issue

[Hugemusic]

"Dr. Wright forgets that students pay to be at a university and that 
universities serve them (the customer). This has gone unrecognized in the 
Turnitin discussion."

Waaaitttt a minute!!  This is neo-capitalist crap.  We have been in the grip 
of economic rationalism too long at this point!

Students are not "customers" of universities.  Students apply to a 
university for the opportunity to demonstrate that they are worthy of an 
accreditation that is handed out at the university's discretion.  There are 
certain benefits (social, economic, cultural) that (hopefully) accrue with 
gaining this accreditation and student must demonstrate that they are worthy 
of it. Once upon a time, (in some places) very little tuition fees were paid 
except as an extra to improve the students' chances of measuring up. 
Certainly, the universities did not require a student to pay them directly; 
academic merit (ie the probability of successful accreditation) was the main 
criterion for admission.  (Ignoring exclusion because of race, gender, etc 
for a minute).

You can't "buy" a university degree, at least not from universities that 
matter. The university (often with government oversight) sets the standard 
for accreditation. If the student does not measure up, they miss out. They 
took their chance and failed. Many former student are in this category. 
Some - like me - learn from the experience and try again. If they don't like 
the conditions, they can go elsewhere, but they have no access to a degree 
for which the university deems them unworthy ... there is no guarantee the 
uni will let them try and there's no guarantee the uni will pass them.

The whole problem of plagiarism is that it is cheating on this process; 
claiming a level of worthiness that is not your own.  The university is 
quite right to take all measures to prevent people who do so from gaining 
the accreditation they seek - they are not worthy. The uni is entitled (nay, 
required!) to do whatever it takes at that point.  If they pass one 
fee-paying student who has not met the standard, they are devaluing the 
efforts of all the other fee-paying students who did meet it - which is 
better service???

Of course, anyone who's taught at a university for any length of time knows 
that ?recent? forces are bringing pressure to change this in favour of the 
model described below. But the university is quite entitled to set the 
conditions for accredition regardless of fees paid ... there is no customer 
service guarantee (at least in theory).

I was wondering about this line this morning and it needs to be addressed.

Cheers,
Hughie


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Whyte" <whyte.james at yahoo.com>
To: <air-l at listserv.aoir.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2007 5:15 AM
Subject: Re: [Air-l] turnitin issue


>I think Dr. Wright forgets that students pay to be at a university and that 
>universities serve them (the customer). This has gone unrecognized in the 
>Turnitin discussion.
>
>  Also, employment agreements are to protect the "for profit" trade" 
> knowledge.
>
> 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
> _______________________________________________
> The air-l at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: 
> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels
> in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit.
> _______________________________________________
> The air-l at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: 
> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/
>