- Presumption of Guilt
Why is an "anti-plagiarism tool" mandatory regardless of a suspicion of cheating? Why would a 100% original paper receive a failing grade simply because it was not vetted and contributed to an outside contractor's database? Shouldn't the use of turnitin.com be voluntary unless cheating is suspected by an instructor? What is the purpose of the Honor Code?
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Privacy
The McLean High School Administration states that a student's anonymity is maintained throughout the process of using turnitin.com and that the student is identified only by a random number. Why is it then that the FCPS Blackboard link redirects the student immediately to an off-site server wherein the student is first required to provide their e-mail address and then their full name? Anonymity?
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Violation of Intellectual Property Laws The most complicated of the issues, the violation of intellectual property laws by the archival of student's work is perhaps the most egregious issue of all. With the threat of receiving an "F" on an assignment for non-compliance, students at McLean High School are being coerced in the truest sense of the word to submit their own original work to a for-profit company for use and re-use in its primary business. The publishers of dontturnitin.com do not purport in any way to possess the legal qualifications to render opinions associated with copyright law infringements but direct the reader to Mr. Vanderhye's letter in the Links & Info section for a professional's opinion.
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What kind of company sues high school students?
In December of 2006 iPardigms (parent company of turnitin.com) filed suit in the Northern District
Court of California against the McLean Committee for Students Rights, a group of 16 students at McLean
High School. The ill-conceived suit for Declaratory Relief (see Info & Links tab for a copy of the lawsuit) that
claimed damages and costs in excess of $75,000 was inexplicably withdrawn coincidentally with a call for
comment from The Washington Post.
Remarkably, instead of being incensed at one of their contractors filing suit against a group of their
students, the McLean High School Administration and FCPS sided with turnitin.com and supported
the issue being resolved in the court system (Wardinski letter of 12.21.06 in Info & Links).
These two facts alone would lead the rational person to believe that:
a) turnitin.com's extremely defensive posture points to a weakness in their business model, and
b) that our school administration has totally lost perspective with this issue and is no longer
qualified to conduct a realistic analysis of its own policies and procedures.
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