Tuesday’s SGA Senate meeting was marked by a debate about how to prevent plagiarism on campus and a new system being utilized on campus to help – Turnitin.com.
Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost Dr. Bert C. Bach and Assistant Professor Jerry Shuttle made the case for the new program.
Bach said that addressing plagiarism is a serious problem, and Turnitin.com is one possible answer. He also addressed some issues with the system.
“One worry is that students would think that there is a presumption that they are guilty,” Bach said. However, he said that non-guilty students had nothing to fear and used an analogy to explain his belief.
“I don’t worry about radar on the highway unless I’m going over the speed limit,” he said.
Shuttle explained how the process works. An account with Turnitin.com is available for any professor who asks for one – all they would need to do is contact Shuttle.
A professor can have his or her students turn in papers directly through Turnitin.com. Turnitin compares each paper with text from the Internet, other papers and selected databases to look for possible plagiarism. In the meantime, the system creates a “digital fingerprint” of each paper by turning it into a mathematical algorithm, which can then be checked against future papers.
Shuttle addressed some of the possible legal issues with the system as well.
“The main question is whether it is a violation of intellectual property,” he said, citing that the database’s use of students’ paper in future comparisons could violate fair use. However, the Turnitin.com has a section explaining the legal arguments supporting its use of student papers.
Shuttle said that 75 to 80 professors at ETSU have signed up for the system so far, and 20 to 25 professors use it regularly. Shuttle also said that this system is used by several hundred U.S. universities, including the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Carson-Newman and six or seven others in Tennessee, along with schools like the United States Military Academy and Yale elsewhere in the United States.
Turnitin is also used by several dozen Canadian universities and many universities in the United Kingdom. This is only the second year that ETSU has made this program available to professors.
There were also some students at the SGA meeting who were opposed to the system. They said that Turnitin.com posed technical, pedagogical and ethical problems all at the same time.
“Turnitin does not distinguish between those who cheat and those who don’t,” one student said. “Intent is not detected.”
Objectors said that a student could change words but not the ideas and get through the system that way.
They also criticized the Turnitin system because it flags papers that have quotes from other sources, even if those sources are cited. Shuttle disputed that this was a problem, however, and said that it was solely up to the professors to determine whether plagiarism took place, and all they would have to do is look at the paper to see that flagged statements were cited in the paper.
Students opposed to the system still said that it creates a “climate of distrust” and that there is a presumption of guilt that “attacks the personal integrity of all students.”
The students said, however, that their strongest opposition to Turnitin was ethical. “Students are being forced to contribute to the profits of a corporation,” one student said, citing that students may be forced to turn their papers in using the system or fail the course, meaning that they would be forced to agree to Turnitin’s terms of service, which they may disagree with.
Students also dispute the claim that the system doesn’t violate fair use. “They keep a copy of our paper, even if it’s in a mathematical algorithm,” one student said.
The SGA has signaled that they are concerned about this matter and plan to discuss it at next week’s meeting. SGA President Ethan Flynn encourages students who have concerns about the Turnitin system to contact their student senators or e-mail the SGA at sga@etsu.edu
There was other activity at the SGA meeting as well. Director of Housing Bonnie Burchett also spoke to the Senate. Burchett talked about the new planned residence hall that will replace Frank Clement and Ellington halls.
Burchett also noted improvements to Buc Ridge, including 56 new two-bedroom apartments. Burchett also talked about a planned extension to the Buc Ridge club house slated to start construction in spring 2005.
Burchett also spoke about future plans following the opening of the new residence hall in 2006 and 2007, including renovating Panhellenic, West and Dossett halls.
In internal senate business, two more students were confirmed without debate and sworn in as senators.

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