Turnitin controversy reaches Brock
Travis Lowry
Issue date: 3/9/04 Section: News
Hill has invited a number of students from various departments and student organizations to join the task force and help find some good alternatives, and may even need to circulate a petition in the future.
"If students are concerned then it's a valid concern," said Lye, "That means we need to look at it."
Lye, who uses the site occasionally for large courses or courses with material with a lot of secondary sources, said that the site is particularly beneficial in courses with eight or nine seminars with several people grading papers.
"In multi-section courses and courses where there are a lot of seminars and students know that their papers are going to be graded by different people, there may be a temptation for students who are pressed as people normally are to take a short cut," said Lye.
Hill said that he has already come up with some alternatives that really do not necessarily require new or additional resources to Brock. He said that the easiest and quickest way to solve problems with plagiarism is for professors not to repeatedly use the same assignments in their classes. However, Hill said he is finding some resistance from a lot of faculty who feel the site is useful and alleviates some of the strain they face from resource limitations.
"I think the issue then is finding other alternatives," said Hill. "Let's not just default to whatever is easiest, but thinking outside the box sometimes goes against certain institutional mores, I guess."
"I'm really losing faith with the Senate basically because I don't see faculty stepping outside the box trying to come up with alternatives," said Hill. "I see them defending the administration, holding the party line."
"Senate is looking at this not as 'are we for or against Turnitin.com,' but what are the policy grounds that we should be pursuing here," said Lye. "What are the fundamental issues of justice to everybody in terms of to the discipline, to learning, to students, to faculty. So we will be pursuing these things in a broader sense than one program or site."
"If students are concerned then it's a valid concern," said Lye, "That means we need to look at it."
Lye, who uses the site occasionally for large courses or courses with material with a lot of secondary sources, said that the site is particularly beneficial in courses with eight or nine seminars with several people grading papers.
"In multi-section courses and courses where there are a lot of seminars and students know that their papers are going to be graded by different people, there may be a temptation for students who are pressed as people normally are to take a short cut," said Lye.
Hill said that he has already come up with some alternatives that really do not necessarily require new or additional resources to Brock. He said that the easiest and quickest way to solve problems with plagiarism is for professors not to repeatedly use the same assignments in their classes. However, Hill said he is finding some resistance from a lot of faculty who feel the site is useful and alleviates some of the strain they face from resource limitations.
"I think the issue then is finding other alternatives," said Hill. "Let's not just default to whatever is easiest, but thinking outside the box sometimes goes against certain institutional mores, I guess."
"I'm really losing faith with the Senate basically because I don't see faculty stepping outside the box trying to come up with alternatives," said Hill. "I see them defending the administration, holding the party line."
"Senate is looking at this not as 'are we for or against Turnitin.com,' but what are the policy grounds that we should be pursuing here," said Lye. "What are the fundamental issues of justice to everybody in terms of to the discipline, to learning, to students, to faculty. So we will be pursuing these things in a broader sense than one program or site."
