Site fights war on plagiarism

by Tim Tevault
Managing Editor

Plagiarism and cheating at both the high school and college levels has become a serious problem during the past 10 years, especially with the expansion of the Internet over recent years.

A downside to the Internet's proliferation in education is that students everywhere have found easy ways to access and take credit for work done by others.

According to the Center for Academic Integrity, an academic think­tank based out of Duke University, 80 percent of college students have admitted to cheating at least once. And a U.S. News and World Report from 1999 found that 90 percent of students polled believe cheaters are either never caught or have never been disciplined.

Other reports were similarly cynical as a poll of high school students by Rutgers University Professor Donald McCabe found 75 percent of the 4,500 surveyed admitted to cheating, with more than half admitting to plagiarizing from the Internet.

"People expect us to attend seven classes a day, keep a 4.0 GPA, not go crazy and turn in all our work the next day," said one respondent to McCabe's survey who admitted to finding nothing wrong with cheating.

Not surprisingly, plagiarism is also a significant problem at the University of La Verne.

"(Students) don't call it cheating because everybody does it," said English Professor Catherine Henley-Erickson. "The whole community needs to be aware of plagiarism."

There are the rare occasions when plagiarism happens innocently, Henley-Erickson said. Once in a while, students will read a book and when they go to write their paper, very similar thoughts flow onto the page.

But, she added, "when we borrow something from someone we need to give credit to the owner."

One way ULV is catching plagiarists in the act is through Turnitin.com, a website created for that purpose. The website, which can be used to benefit both professors and students, allows its users to send the work into cyberspace through a process which scans for similar phrases and information. When similarities are found, the program sends the user weblinks to the original text.

Generally, the process begins with students submitting papers to their professors electronically. The professor can then copy the body and bibliography to Turnitin.com.

Criss Sudar, coordinator of instructional technology, oversees the use of Turnitin.com at ULV.

"We're not out to really bust anybody," she said. "Our goal is to make sure students write things properly."

After professors submit the paper in question to Turnitin.com, the site sends them a breakdown showing what percent of the work is original versus what is plagiarized. This allows them to make their own judgment call.

While professors can check students' papers by sending them in to the site, students can also submit their papers before they turn them in to see if their papers may be similar to anything, which may in turn invoke false charges of plagiarism.

To use the program, professors must obtain a pin number from Sudar beforehand to give to the student so they can check their own work.

Turnitin.com has a database of more than a billion different documents, said John M. Barrie, one of the original founders of the website. It even has its own section of submitted term papers that it searches in case students are plagiarizing from each other.

The program is not cheap. ULV pays a subscription price of $1,500 a year, but Sudar said it is worth the price.

"It's really reasonable," she said. "They (the professors) can see the difference. It does work."

According to Barrie, competition to get into graduate schools is one motive a student might have to cheat.

"The most important immediate way (Turnitin .com) benefits is it makes sure students who don't do their work don't have a competitive edge," he said. "The competition is fierce."

Barrie added that students who do not spend the extra time writing a paper and who go on the Internet and copy directly off sources online will have more time freed up to study or work on projects.

The idea of Turnitin.com came directly from Barrie's need to allow students to peer review each other's work to critique and get ideas for their own papers. However, this plan backfired on him.

"Once a teacher creates a website (for peer review), what that faculty has inadvertently done is created a mini-cheat site," he said.

This is where the idea for Turnitin.com came from.

"Back then I didn't care about plagiarism and cheating," Barrie said. "I cared about peer review. That's what drove me."

Barrie's idea to catch cheaters of the peer review system was the foundation for what flourished into what is now the first and largest website of its kind.

In addition to offering the plagiarism-checking system, Turnitin.com also offers a peer review section in which students can anonymously read and review each other's work. Grades can also be posted online so students can see what an "A" paper looks like in their classes, compared to what a "B" or a "C" paper looks like.

Because of all of the amenities the site has to offer, Barrie said by Sept. 1, his website will be used in every university in England.

"Our technology will become the next generation spellchecker," he said. "We are the Yahoo! of what we do."

According to a report posted on Turnitin.com, 40 percent of those polled said Turninin.com was effective in deterring plagiarism from their class or institution. This, along with the 21 percent who said the website was very effective, combines to create a majority of users who approve of the service.

Turnitin.com was initiated in 1994 and began in 1998 as Plagiarism.org, which became a website containing a plethora of information on plagiarism. Since then, the company has branched out to worldwide status, serving more than 35 countries. Currently, the site represents more than 2.5 million students in the U.S., including students in the college, university and high school level. Such prestigious institutions as Duke, Cornell and the University of California system of schools use this system.

According to Henley-Erickson, Turnitin.com is not the only way to prevent plagiarism.

"I think it is a real good idea that we educate ourselves about what it (plagiarism) is and what it isn't," she said. "The more people talk about it, (the) more people are aware it is a serious issue."

For more information, visit www.turnitin.com or www.plagiarism.org.

To find out more about how to use Turnitin.com on campus, contact Sudar in the Instructional Technology Center at extension 4057.

Plagiarism's Prevelance

·80 percent of college students have admitted to cheating at least once.

·30 percent of a large sampling of UC Berkeley students were recently caught directly plagiarizing off the Internet.

·58.3 percent of high school students let others copy their work in 1969 while 97.5 percent did so in 1989.

·90 percent of students polled believe cheaters are never caught or are never properly disciplined.

Sources: The Center for Academic Integrity; Turnitin.com; The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next; U.S. News and World Report