Plagiarism and Turnitin

Plagiarism is defined as the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as their own. Credit must be given where credit is due. If one were to use another's idea, then credit must be given to the one that originally did the work and cited correctly. It would be literary theft, and it IS against the law. An original idea is considered to be intellectual property, and copyright laws protect them. Most forms of an original idea are protected by copyright if they are recorded. Plagiarism is a known issue in schools. Why? Reports upon reports are written, as well as, essays...lots of essays. Whew! Students must be held accountable for their work. Their OWN work.

This past week my assignment was about plagiarism and the use of a program called Turnitin; which detects plagiarism. This program compares one's work with other works that have been submitted through the web and then scores it. A high score means that the work is not original, whereas a low score means that it is original. For instance, in class I made a report by copying and pasting material that I found on different websites. I then submitted it through Turnitin and received a score of 98%. Later, I made a report based on my findings, but I used my own words. When I submitted my report, I scored 2%. Huge difference.

Turnitin ties into the NETS-T in the fourth standard; to promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility. Teachers have the responsibility to advocate, model, and to teach safe, legal, and ethical uses of digital information and technology. Respect for copyright, intellectual property, and the appropriate documentation of sources should be taught.

I have previously used Turnitin for submitting essays to my professors. It wasn't used for me as a student to use, to see if my work would be dinged or not. It was used so that my professors knew if my work was original or not. I can see this being used both ways, for a student or a teacher. A student could see where they are wrong, whereas a teacher can see that the student is trying to pass off something as their own. Overall this assignment was easy, and the Turnitin program is simple to use.