Dear Editor,
With the new web site turnitin.com, students at ETSU must prove they are not guilty of plagiarism or else fail. Is there no more trust between the students and the teachers?
Some classes in the university already use the system at turnitin.com. Students in these classes must register to the web site. Don’t bother to read the terms and conditions, you have no choice but to accept otherwise your teacher will fail you in the class.
Once the student has registered, they must send a copy of every paper they write for that class to this web site. The web site checks the paper for plagiarism and sends the results to the teacher. All students in the class are assumed guilty of plagiarism, because they must prove their innocence.
If the student refuses to prove his or her innocence by sending his or her work to turnitin.com, the student receives a failing grade. Plagiarist or not, you are guilty if you refuse to report to this third-party web site. No student at ETSU will deny that plagiarism exists, but anyone knows that teachers with experience can easily detect when a student has a sudden change in his or her writing style.
According to ETSU Mission statement, under the section “Our Values,” we can read:
“PEOPLE come first, are treated with dignity and respect and are encouraged to achieve their full potential.”
In reality, the importance of finding plagiarism comes before the dignity and the respect of students. Being coerced to prove we aren’t guilty of plagiarism seems an attack on our dignity and respect.
If we read further on “Our Values” of ETSU, we see:
“RELATIONSHIPS are built on honesty, integrity, and trust.”
I can assure you that if every student at ETSU must prove him or herself innocent of guilt, relationships are not being built on honesty and trust.
The ETSU catalog and web site also mentions:
“EXCELLENCE is achieved through teamwork, leadership, creativity, and a strong work ethic.”
This is not teamwork, but coercion against the will of students. Furthermore, this is bad ethics. Students should not feel like they are on the defense.
Whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty?”
Yvan De Repentigny

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