Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
Q: What are some of the intellectual property rights issues involved in the university’s use of the anti-plagiarism program Turnitin.com?
A: According to a poll in the U.S. News and World Report, approximately 85 percent of students in college believe that cheating is crucial for success. Plagiarism is one common form of cheating, and Turnitin.com is one method employed by academic institutions to combat it. Turnitin.com is used by more than 6 million professors and students at nearly 2,500 institutions in 51 countries.
This year, the University of Maine purchased the right to use the Turnitin.com program. Armed with this, professors may upload papers to a database. Papers are stored as files that are created by using a mathematical algorithm. The file, called the fingerprint, is not the paper in its entirety, but rather a code based upon patterns found in the paper. The files are then compared to Internet sources, publisher databases, and other papers that have been submitted. The program then responds with an indication of which parts of the paper, if any, match other materials against which the fingerprint was compared.
Legal counsel for Turnitin.com takes the position that the company’s program does not violate students’ intellectual property rights. One concern voiced by those who oppose the use of the program is that professors don’t need to inform students that they use the program. Counsel for Turnitin.com argues that, by handing in an assignment, a student grants broad authority to the professor to grade the paper based on standards that include an evaluation of students’ claims to original authorship. Counsel further argues that this broad discretion includes the authority to use technology to assist in the evaluation process. Seen in this light, Turnitin.com may be viewed as merely a technological extension of the professors’ ability to check papers against previously submitted papers stored in the institutions’ own archives.
Another concern voiced by opponents is that Turnitin.com profits by the use of students’ works. However, it is not a violation of students’ intellectual property rights for professors to profit, at least in part, from their ability to check students’ papers for authenticity and original authorship. Therefore, one must ask why it would be a violation of those rights to compensate the professors’ “technological extension” of that ability for performing the same function?
Concerns have also been voiced that Turnitin.com’s copying of students’ works is, in and of itself, a violation of intellectual property rights. However, Turnitin.com is not making any claim to ownership or authorship of the papers themselves. In addition, the fingerprint is not a true copy, and it does not appear that one could reverse the fingerprinting process in order to untranslate the fingerprinted document and retrieve the original version. Therefore, fingerprinting is not a reproduction of the work in its entirety. Therefore, Turnitin.com does not appear to pose a serious risk of violation of any intellectual property rights.
Legal Services of Student Government are provided by Attorney Theodore S. Curtis, Jr. and David R. Miller. The Legal Services Office is located on the first floor of Memorial Union. They can be reached at 581-1789 or on FirstClass: Theodore Curtis. Copyright Theodore S. Curtis, Jr.
Bangor Daily News