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Re: [xmca] FW: The Shadow Scholar - He writes your students' papers.



http://www.plagiarismtoday.com/2008/03/25/iparadigms-wins-turnitin-lawsuit/

Nancy Mack

Professor of English 
Wright State University

http://www.wright.edu/~nancy.mack





----- Original Message -----
From: Karen Heckert <heckertkrs@yahoo.com>
Date: Monday, January 10, 2011 3:16 pm
Subject: Re: [xmca] FW: The Shadow Scholar - He writes your students' papers.
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> Turnitin owns the copyright to all the papers I wrote for those 
> classes? The 
> rights to all the papers written by all the students that are 
> forced to use it? 
> That's bizarre. Outrageous. How can a professor compel a student 
> to give up the 
> rights to their own work? I sincerely hope you're mistaken.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: Greg Mcverry <jgregmcverry@gmail.com>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Mon, January 10, 2011 9:25:42 AM
> Subject: Re: [xmca] FW: The Shadow Scholar - He writes your 
> students' papers.
> 
> I have to agree with Jenna wholeheartedly. While blatant 
> cheating as
> described by the "Shadow Scholar" does cross some ethical boundaries,
> students are ill-prepared for academic writing. Jenna gave a wonderful
> account of these issues in higher education. The line, "But we 
> do our
> students a deep and lasting injustice by placing the blame 
> solely on their
> shoulders," really resonated. The probelm, however, starts much 
> earlier in
> education.
> 
> We, as educators, simply do not do justice when it comes to teaching
> students to use multiple sources in primary and secondary school.
> 
> I hear it all the time when providing professional development 
> to teachers
> in the US. When I start talking about student combining ideas 
> from online
> sources a teacher (usually high school) shouts out, "The middle school
> doesn't teach students to cite sources." To me that is the crux 
> of the
> problem. Educators equate a complex intertextual process of 
> constructing new
> ideas from old with the act of putting a comma in the right 
> place using APA
> or MLA.
> 
> Instead of addressing the issue teachers look to software such 
> as TurnitIn.
> While the courts and I disagree I have issue with students 
> having to
> unwillingly give up copyright of their work to TurnitIn which 
> then owns the
> rights to that paper, makes a profit off the work, and offers 
> the original
> author no credit. It seems like a business model built on 
> plagiarism to
> catch plagiarism. I have to agree with those that comment taking 
> a sentence
> (find the one with the semicolon) and throwing it into Google.
> 
> I think though, instead of trying to catch plagiarism we need to teach
> students to use multiple sources and introduce academic 
> discourses much
> earlier in education. It is the only way to stop the cycle of Colleges
> claiming high schools are to blame and high schools laying the 
> blame at the
> doors of middle schools.
> 
> Greg
> 
> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 9:02 AM, Jenna McWilliams 
> <jennamcjenna@gmail.com>wrote:
> > I have loved reading this thread over the last several days. 
> It's an issue
> > that interests me enormously, and one that I've thought about 
> a lot. So
> > pardon the lengthy ramblings below....
> >
> > A few iterations of myself ago, I was a college composition 
> and literature
> > instructor. Anyone who’s taught this particular category of 
> courses knows
> > that cheating is an enormous issue: take the ramped-up 
> pressure on young
> > people to set themselves apart from their peers in an era that 
> has seen the
> > highest rate of college enrollment in the history of America; 
> add to that
> > the increasingly fuzzy borders around what counts as 
> ‘plagiarism’ in this
> > mixed up, multimodal, shareable world; and toss in a 
> generation of students
> > who have received little guidance, if any, from adults on 
> navigating issues
> > of plagiarism, copyright, appropriation and sharing of ideas 
> and content.
> >
> > What you get: students who either don’t know or don’t care 
> about why
> > universities care so much about the ethics of plagiarism.
> >
> > But we do our students a deep and lasting injustice by placing 
> the blame
> > solely on their shoulders. One reason students plagiarize is 
> that it’s easy:
> > Writing instructors often distribute the same essay 
> assignments semester
> > after semester; they use essay prompts that are so worn, and 
> so widely used,
> > that even students who honestly intend to just find supporting 
> resources for
> > their essays online may end up having their entire papers 
> mapped out for
> > them. (cf. Is Willy Loman a tragic hero?; Take a position on 
> gay marriage.)
> > If we want our students to leave our classes and universities as
> > independent, creative thinkers, then we need to offer them 
> opportunities to
> > think and write about things other than the stuff that every 
> student in the
> > history of college has already had to slog through.
> >
> > Here’s the two-pronged approach I started to implement right 
> before I left
> > teaching in favor of gainful employment and health insurance 
> (I lived in
> > Massachusetts at the time, was an adjunct instructor and 
> therefore not
> > offered health insurance, and could not afford to purchase 
> state-mandated
> > insurance on an annual income that stayed safely below 
> $20,000–even with the
> > part-time job I worked on top of teaching a full course load every
> > semester.): I developed writing assignments that a.) required 
> students to
> > draft original writing and b.) offered a way in to 
> conversations about the
> > difference between ethical appropriation and plagiarism. 
> Here’s one thing I
> > tried: I asked students to draft a creative rewrite of a 
> source text–they
> > could write a prequel, add a scene into the text, or rewrite 
> or extend the
> > ending. Then they were required to analyze how their rewrite 
> changed the
> > story, and in so doing, to demonstrate an understanding of the 
> themes and
> > characters of the text. I only had time to try this once, but 
> if I were to
> > do it again I would also have students think and write about the
> > appropriation / plagiarism issue as it relates to this 
> assignment. I don’t
> > think it’s a perfect assignment by any means, and students who were
> > determined to cheat could still find a way to succeed, but 
> it’s certainly
> > better–and more interesting–than the hackneyed old prompts 
> that end up being
> > so easy to lift from teh Google.
> >
> > Being more creative instructors doesn’t solve the cheating 
> issue, but it’s
> > certainly better than the strange alternative of simply adding 
> more policing
> > to our learning environments. Did you see that NYTimes article 
> about Caveon,
> > a security program that detects cheating by comparing 
> students’ responses on
> > standardized tests (
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/28/education/28cheat.html?_r=1)?
> > Apparently, lots of students are using their phones to give 
> each other the
> > answers to test questions. Caveon also mines the internet for 
> sites where
> > students discuss their answers on high-stakes tests like the LSAT.
> > Presumably, it notifies the makers of the test, who then 
> remove the flagged
> > items from the next version.
> >
> > As you can imagine, this is a lucrative endeavor: "As tests are
> > increasingly important in education — used to determine 
> graduation, graduate
> > school admission and, the latest, merit pay and tenure for 
> teachers —
> > business has been good for Caveon, a company that uses “data 
> forensics” to
> > catch cheats, billing itself as the only independent test 
> security outfit in
> > the country."
> >
> > Well, at least students find out early what it’s like to live 
> in a country
> > that generally believes that the best defense is a good 
> offense: That
> > catching and punishing wrongdoers will deter others from going 
> down the
> > wrong path. Never let the facts get in the way of a good 
> theory: We’ll keep
> > passing ridiculously harsh drug laws even though they don’t 
> deter people
> > from buying, selling, and using illegal drugs. Our 
> politicians, supported by
> > right-wing pundits, will resist extending unemployment 
> benefits in the worst
> > economic recession we’ve seen since the Great Depression. Why? 
> Because> they’ve decided, in direct contradiction of the 
> evidence, that America’s 15
> > million unemployed adults are lazy bums who just need a swift 
> kick in the
> > ass.
> >
> > That’s the world our students are headed for, so they might as 
> well learn
> > the lesson early that it’s a world that prefers punishment 
> over dialogue,
> > short-term fixes instead of enduring solutions, and using 
> bandaids to fix
> > gaping wounds.
> >
> > Look: students cheat on standardized tests because they know 
> that the
> > stakes are really effing high. They cheat because they don’t 
> see any reason
> > not to–because it’s not clear why ‘authentic’ achievement on a
> > multiple-choice exam is even worth striving for. They cheat 
> because they
> > don’t see any connection between the contents of those tests 
> and the subject
> > areas that matter to them as human beings. They cheat because 
> the tests are
> > stupid but the scores are important.
> >
> > So instead of fixing a broken system with an overreliance on 
> standardized> tests, we just add more cops–this time, in the 
> form of computer programs.
> > Sure, that should work just fine. Just like it worked to add 
> more proctors
> > to testing locations. Just like it worked to collect students’ 
> cellphones> before they began the exam. Just like it worked to 
> guard test questions like
> > they were matters of national security.
> >
> > The low road is easier to walk, but it doesn’t offer much 
> opportunity for
> > scaling mountains. In the coming decade, I would like to see 
> us take the
> > higher road a little more frequently.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ~~
> >
> > Jenna McWilliams
> > Learning Sciences Program, Indiana University
> > ~
> > http://www.jennamcwilliams.com
> > http://twitter.com/jennamcjenna
> >
> > ~
> > jenmcwil@indiana.edu
> > jennamcjenna@gmail.com
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Jan 10, 2011, at 8:50 AM, Larry Purss wrote:
> >
> >  I don't want to take a position on this topic, but was 
> curious about what
> >> seems a contradiction between issues of "control and trust" 
> in a manner
> >> similar to Engstrom's article on the use of technology in 
> middle schools
> >> and
> >> putting computers in the hallway.  I wonder if the 
> concepts  "control" and
> >> "trust" are primary or basic constructs when discussing 
> institutional>> structures or containers.  I was wondering 
> when reading Engstrom's article
> >> if the terms control and trust were explanatory terms 
> within  2nd person
> >> actor narratives or if Engstrom abstracted these terms as 
> explanatory 3rd
> >> person narratives of what he observed in the middle school 
> environment.>>  Do
> >> others see a contradiction or tension in the discussion of 
> plagarism or is
> >> it a clear case of civic virtue?
> >>
> >> Larry
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jan 10, 2011 at 12:40 AM, Rod Parker-Rees <
> >> R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote:
> >>
> >>  And I can also confirm that this extends to submissions 
> to peer reviewed
> >>> journals, too. I have had the experience of receiving a 
> paper which was
> >>> noticeably more lucid than the email which accompanied it, a 
> quick bit of
> >>> googling revealed that the paper was the work of a student 
> at a UK
> >>> university where the submitter had been working as a 
> visiting academic.
> >>>
> >>> Rod
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> J. Gregory McVerry
> Neag Fellow
> University of Connecticut
> New Literacies Research Lab
> http://newliteracies.uconn.edu
> twitter: jgmac1106
> 
> 
> " [Champions] have to have the skill and the will. But the will 
> must be
> stronger than the skill." -Ali
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