Your comments – especially the idea that a piece of writing “needs to be assessed in light of the student’s overall learning” – suggests that instructors should be taking more active responsibility for the work that students produce. When a student hands in a paper that is partially or wholly plagiarized, it of course reflects on the student, but it also says something about the teacher, too: the effectiveness of the class, of the assignment, etc. And the way that the teacher reacts (whether it be punitively, or with a supposed software “solution”) says even more about the instructor.

I get so many queries from students about percentage scores and what’s an “OK score to have” when Turnitin assignments come in. The question in itself shows exactly what the problem is with systems like this – they turn cheating into a numberical exercise. As educational professionals we have a responsibility to teach and assess the learning of our students, and this assessment cannot easily be turned into a quantitative exercise. As you rightly point out, as little referencing and plagiarism may well stimulate thinking and this needs to be assessed in light of the students overall learning.

By deciding on pass or fail by virtue of a dubious number is unfair and not particularly productive

@Matt – Thanks for the link. In the post I really just assumed that there were real issues related to the relinquishment of ownership. It’s nice to see some real evidence that this is indeed the case. From my point of view, the case against Turnitin is strong even without these legal issues, but they certainly don’t hurt the case.

@Julian – That’s a very interesting way to reframe the use of Turnitin. I think I agree that using Turnitin to teach about plagiarism is better than using it to “catch” cheaters. Aside from the intellectual property issues, I would feel relatively comfortable using Turnitin like this. I wouldn’t want to rely on it too much, though. Turnitin will likely do a pretty good job identifying flat out copy-and-pasting, but my students usually need guidance with more subtle forms of citation than they do with straightforward copying. Again, it goes back to the point that the kinds of plagiarism that are arguably the most important to discuss with our students are those that Turnitin will probably be worst at detecting.

Requiring a paper on Aristotle has negative effects on students – it takes away from the time and energy they could be spending on other things that are valuable to them – and it’s my responsibility to ensure that these negative effects are outweighed by the benefits bestowed by such an assignment. A well thought-out term paper assignment will, in the long run, have positive utility for the student.

Wish more of my teachers had considered that responsibility as carefully.