A student found guilty of plagiarism by a school’s
review board is left with feelings of frustration, stress and dissatisfaction.
Even if computer forensic evidence shows they never went to the alleged site
they are accused of plagiarizing from, they are still found guilty by
incompetent individuals who suffer from incompetency.
This past week, the University of Phoenix found a
student guilty of plagiarism based on a false result from TurnItIn software.
The student was not allowed a fair trial with adequate legal representation,
which is a direct violation of the United States Constitution. The accused
student was allowed to speak for five minutes before three people – an IT
person representing the school, a student advisor representing the school and a
moderator – compensated for their time by the school (either financially or
with experience on their resumes). These three highly biased individuals
essentially represented judge and jury and rendered a decision based on the result
of a computer software product over the word of the student. Despite computer
forensic evidence to the contrary, the false positive data result compared to
their own database holdings was enough to condemn the student. These three representatives of the school didn't even consider that the software, itself, could have had a glitch in the system; instead they just sided with the software and found the student guilty as charged by an incompetent instructor. Remember these holdings
were obtained and retained within the TurnItIn database without the full
permission or consent of the originator of the original work, when you consider
that the program circumvents copyright law by stripping the author name for the
company’s own financial gain and use.
The charge is
upheld and these actions were found to be in violation of the Student Code of
Academic
Integrity Article(s):
a. Plagiarism -
Intentional or unintentional representation of another's words or ideas as
one's
own in an
academic exercise.
The definition of plagiarism is as follows:
1. stealing somebody's work or idea: the process of copying another person's idea or written work and claiming it as original
2. something plagiarized: a piece of written work or an idea that somebody has copied and claimed as his or her own
Plagiarism, for those who don't know or understand the definition of the word is simple - utilizing another person's published work without disregard to the other persons work. To claim that the English Language is owned by one person and can only be used by that same person is absolutely absurd. To accuse someone who comes to the same conclusion as another based on the same material, text and syllabus used and read by over 10,000 schools, each having a minimum of 1000 students in their school is preposterous. Lazy teachers and school administrators are branding their valued students with the proverbial flaming "P" way too often. And, for what purpose? To help a private company exceed in their efforts of branding more and more people with plagiarism based on their faulty software conclusion of stolen information contained within their own database.
When a student is
working on an assignment and in their final conclusion regurgitates the essence
of the body of their work into a short summary of three or four sentences to
bring the paper to a close, should they be flagged as a plagiarist for coming
to the same conclusion as someone else before them? It is absurd to assume the person flagrantly
went out, found the same passage and said to themselves, "I'm going to use
this line or that line" in my final paper.
Would they subject themselves to all sorts of frustration, stress and
dishonor over a 200 word assignment? We hardly think they would be so stupid.
How can someone be
accused of plagiarism when they never read another person's work? How could
they have stolen an idea or written work, when they've never reviewed it,
visited a site to which it is listed, or knew about said work? In a case where computer forensic evidence
proves the person being charged has never been to the alleged site, they are still
found guilty based on the opinions of a biased panel unwilling to weigh the
evidence properly. Students beware! You
may be found guilty no matter what you say, or whatever expense you lay out to
have your computer checked out by a computer forensic expert. You will not be
allowed legal representation – you must play by the rules of a corrupt power
system who has already determined to take the word of their client’s software
program over the testimony of the students they are supposed to be serving.
In this day in age of
technology, schools such as University of Phoenix claim "These programs are designed to give honest students an opportunity to check their work prior to submission and before incidentally risking reprimands from higher-education officials." So when a student uses the software and it
produces a ‘Zero’ result, that student feels confident the paper is cleared to
submit to their instructor. But when their instructor receives a different
result using additional elements of the same system, where is the flaw? Not on
the part of the student, because they received a zero percent on their so
called 'originality report' produced by said software.
"Published reports show iParadigm LLC’s Turnitin.com software series is a favorite among many universities—from Harvard University to University of Phoenix." University of Phoenix writer Marissa Yaremich, (UOPX Writer Network) didn't do her homework properly before writing her article in 2010. The truth of the matter is, according to Harvard University, "In 2006, the FAS Instructional Computing Group conducted a
pilot of Turnitin for one course.
Subsequently, the university decided not to subscribe." What does that tell you Ms. Yaremich? Yaremich
didn't do her investigation properly to verify her claims. Harvard University,
the highest Ivy League College in America,
neither uses this software nor would come close to consider it
their ‘favorite.’ Yaremich didn't do her homework properly. The reports she
quotes from claims TurnItIn is the cream of the crop in plagiarism software –
was she not aware that most major colleges refused their software because of
copyright infringements, and alleged theft of intellectual property? Was this
journalistic negligence on her part? Or manipulative propaganda perpetuated by
academia to substantiate their use of the software by helping this company to
better advertise their services? The legal ramifications associated with this
software far outweigh a student not understanding how to cite a source. Instructors
need to learn to teach their courses and stop being lazy by using software to
determine a person's credibility or honesty over their own relationships with
their students.
Instructors would rather you believe
information sponsored by a university who claims to be a legitimate accredited
college, quoting from a report produced by the very program we have been
exposing as commercial fraud for the last two weeks. It is as if the very
nature of academia is to keep people in the dark, rather than expose bias
reporting and claims that are only disseminated to help a for-profit company
gain more clients. We have lost the mere notion of what is truth.
In order to help protect the copyright of
your original creative work, now and in the future, if you are a student who
attends any school, whether it be high school or college, especially if its University of Phoenix, make sure you have
the following disclaimer on your paper before submitting it to your teacher:
Copyright (C) 2012, YOUR NAME.
Unlawful submission of this, or any paper produced, written and
submitted by this author to the YOUR SCHOOL NAME, its instructors or
representatives to the TurnItIn.com system will be subjected to legal action
for copyright infringement. It is by
direction of legal counsel that I place this statement on all papers written by
this author.
Invited co-author of this article, Sean McGowan is published
author, a teacher of Civics and American History, as well as a Chaplain.
NEXT: Zombie's With A Pen -
Journalistic Integrity Lost
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