ANDREW NOSTVICK OP/ED EDITOR
New information from a study about Turnitin.com, the Web site many Wartburg professors use to check student papers for plagiarism, has found some problem with the site.
According to a report in Inside Higher Ed, a study done by Texas Tech University found issues with Turnitin.com and a similar Web site, SafeAssign, such as false positives and incorrect links to sources.
The report found the use of general phrases were flagged by Turnitin. As for incorrect links, the story reported there were some mismatches in terms of links for the plagiarized material.
English department Chair Judy Griffith said professors are not required to use the Turnitin service. However, she does use it for her EN 111 and EN 112 classes. Both classes are taken during a student’s first year.
“First year students are the least experienced in research and citation,” Griffith said.
Griffith said she uses Turnitin.com to check rough drafts of student papers to show students, mainly first years, what their research is like so they can make changes on the final draft.
“There’s no point in using it for the final draft. If I use it for the rough draft and a student’s got problems where they forgot to cite stuff or they don’t have enough research in it, then that’s what they have got to fix for the final,” she said.
Since using Turnitin, Griffith said she’s had only three papers with a high percentage of plagiarized material. Two of the papers she believes were intentional, but a third was a problem that both Griffith and the student realized needed to be taken care of.
“Because I saw it early in the draft stage,” Griffith said, “it never got to the stage of some big problems.”
Professor Fred Ribich said Wartburg brought in Turnitin in 2004 and the contract has to be renewed every year.
Ribich said 26 professors used the site to some extent in the last school year.
“I think it’s useful,” Ribich said. “. . .it helps to sensitize students to the issues of plagiarism and . . . that’s the key benefit of it.”
Sami Anderson has not had any problems with Turnitin, despite only using it for a limited time.
“Turnitin.com is a convenient way to turn in papers,” Anderson said. “We can turn assignments in at any time and less paper is wasted in the process.”
Eric Billings has used the program for several of his classes. He said Turnitin has been a hassle for one of his classes due to a professor not being completely comfortable with setting up the program.
He has also had issues with Turnitin, when submitting and uploading assignments.
“I understand why we use Turnitin and support the goal of preventing plagiarism, but I think it’s more trouble than it’s worth,” Billings said.
Griffith doesn’t think the drawbacks from the study should be an issue.
“This is Wartburg. I just don’t find students to be dishonest, but if you do the full-blown writing process, you know they’re working through the steps,” Griffith said.