Jess Stommel responds to the news that TurnItIn acquired by Advance Publications. It is interesting how a company that is built on other people’s data can cash in like that.
Tag: Turn It In
I have better things to do than read the whole text (~ 5.100 words) but I did read enough to know that I couldn’t agree with this User Agreement. Instead I decided to write this blog post explaining what I find so disagreeable.
Hans de Zwart writes a Turn It In user agreement that he would be will to sign:
My work can only be used by Turnitin to check for plagiarism.
As I see no reason for it being my responsibility to help Turnitin get better at doing their job (by giving them the ability to recognise when somebody plagiarizes my work), I want Turnitin to delete my work as soon as the check has been done.
If Turnitin relies on third parties to do the plagiarism check, then I would need a limitative list of these parties and the assurance that the above two conditions will also count for them.
For more on Turn It In, read this post by Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel.