Should Faculty Turnitin?

A growing number of institutions are experimenting with Web-based plagiarism detection software systems, like Turnitin. The software allows faculty to check student papers against, in the case of Turnitin, “billions of pages from both current and archived instances of the internet, millions of student papers previously submitted to Turnitin, and commercial databases of journal articles and periodicals.”

After submitting a student paper to Turnitin, an Originality Report is generated for the instructor of any matches uncovered between the paper and a database of source materials. Based on the results of the report, and by comparing passages in the submitted paper with the full text of the source material, faculty then determine if plagiarism has occurred.

A screenshot selection from the Turnitin “Originality Report”

While many teachers believe that these tools greatly facilitate the process of identifying plagiarism cases and deter students from illegal copying, a number of important questions regarding intellectual property rights and student privacy have been raised about commercial plagiarism detection services (PDS).

The Intellectual Property Caucus of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC-IP) has recently issued a position paper on the use of plagiarism detection services.

Regarding student privacy, they write:

PDSs can violate students’ right to privacy by making student writing available to commercial third parties not engaged in the relationship implied in the educational process. Most PDS licensing agreements give companies the right to “reproduce, display, disclose, and otherwise use” student work for their business purposes. In addition to student papers, “work” includes “questions, comments, suggestions and other data and information” submitted to the site. Even with the promised exclusion of “personally identifiable information,” such blanket permission to circulate student work presents risks which students might not anticipate or fully understand.

There is genuine concern by some students that their papers, which they consider part of their personal academic record, could be inappropriately shared with other academic institutions or future employers, that their intellectual property could be compromised, or that Turnitin’s privacy policy might be altered if the company was ever sold.

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), is a federal law that protects the confidentiality of student educational records by preventing colleges and universities from disclosing certain information about a student without that student’s consent except in specific circumstances. However, in their Privacy and Copyright document, Turnitin cites a supreme court ruling, Owasso Independent School District v. Falvo, to argue that “individual student papers do not fall under the category of “student education records” as described in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). Therefore, “student submission of papers to our system does not implicate FERPA.”

However, even if PSDs like Turnitin are in strict compliance with the law, academic institutions should carefully consider the implications of having the intellectual property of students held indefinitely in the database of a company that can profit from the material and share it with third parties.

One potential solution would be for academic institutions to collaborate on developing their own Open Source solutions and standards for detecting plagiarism. Although this would certainly not address all of the concerns surrounding the use of PDSs (including those related to the impact on student confidence and the learning environment), having institutions of learning responsible for the archiving and sharing of student-generated content for the purpose of detecting plagiarism might help to mitigate some of the concerns over student privacy and intellection property.

For additional information, see the CCCC-IP Plagiarism Detection Services Bibliography

Distributed Computing Meets PS3

When not engaged in Grand Theft Auto, Kill Zone, and NBA Street Homecourt, PlayStation 3 owners can now put their gaming consoles to work helping to cure disease, fight global warming, and detect extraterrestrial objects.

PS3 users will soon have the option (through a software update) to click on an icon for Stanford University’s Folding@home project. This software will run “protein folding” simulations, helping researchers to understand why proteins sometimes fold incorrectly and mutate into diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

(The PS3 Folding@home client displaying a 3D protein simulation.)

A growing number of universities, research centers, and labs have initiated volunteer-based distributed computing projects in an effort to supercharge their computer processing capabilities. To participate, PC owners generally need to download software from the project website. The participant’s computer is engaged (usually by the screensaver or some other “sleep” mode) to work on computational problems when it would otherwise be doing nothing. Some projects even give participants regular research progress updates and reports on scientific breakthroughs.

From health problems in Africa to gravitational waves, quantum chemistry to climate forecasting, the number of distributed computing projects is rapidly growing, and the added computing power by volunteers can make a significant difference.

Some popular projects include:

Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC), now with over 940,000 participants and over 1,700,000 computers, is working on a wide variety of researchtopics.

Oxford University’s Screensaver Lifesaver, is attempting to map a large database of molecular structures against 12 cancer targets.

University of Washington’s Rosetta@home, is focused on developing computational methods that accurately predict and design protein structure for curing a variety of diseases.

Interested PS3 and PC users can find an updated list of active and volunteer distributed computing research projects on Wikipedia.

Librarian Avatars?

Second Life is an intriguing social networking experiment, taking the principals of Web 2.0 to the extreme by allowing users to create alternate realities and selves (called avatars) within a fully immersive 3D virtual space called a metaverse. I recently had the opportunity to visit “Information Island” in Second Life as part of a group discussion on the potential for metaverses (and related social networking technologies) to supplement traditional library reference services.

 

(Screenshot of the Second Life Library 2.0)

I was surprised to learn that over 400 tech-savvy librarians representing over 30 academic libraries are currently active in Second Life. There are virtual reference desks, exhibition spaces, information kiosks, and conference centers. On Information Island, users can ask questions at a virtual reference desk (staffed about 40 hours a week by volunteers), search Google, Wikipedia and other resources “in world,” and participate in lectures. Currently, about one third of reference questions on Information Island are SL-related, one third are about the island itself, and the rest are traditional reference questions. Most queries are answered through the integrated text messaging system. Links to resources and files can also be delivered via a “notecard” system. In most cases, users must exit SL in order to follow Web links, open attachments, access journal articles, bibliographic databases, etc.

The library initiatives in Second Life are truly innovative and are redefining the very concept of virtual reference. Naturally, many challenges still exist: the steep learning curve, the cumbersome communication between multiple users, the unintuitive nature of navigating the environment, the need to exit SL in order to access subscription e-resources, digital collections, etc.

However, the greatest challenges for academic libraries thinking of establishing a presence in SL might have less to do with technological barriers (as these will certainly be addressed in time), and more to do with the “escapist” and “gaming” nature of the platform itself. Students who explore metaverses are generally looking to be entertained, meet new friends, explore unfamiliar places, and do the unimaginable (like flying). They are not there to do homework and the last thing they might want to encounter in SL is a “librarian avatar”! Of course, this could easily change as more high school/college courses and distance learning programs experiment with SL as a course platform, and as new “scholarly” metaverses and virtual research spaces are created.

We must applaud the courageous and innovative librarians who have taken the initiative to explore the potential of this exciting new technology, who are planning and building the infrastructure for the next generation of library tools, and who are monitoring where new opportunities might exist to supplement traditional library research services.

Second Life Library Site
Flickr images of Second Life Library 2.0
Second Life Startup Kit

Viva Vivo!

Cornell University has developed an exciting new knowledge base for life sciences called Vivo: Virtual Life Sciences Library. In addition to being a research guide with life sciences databases, tutorials, and image collections within and beyond Cornell, Vivo also directs users to information on and links to fee-for-service facilities across campus, education and training resources, and a list of selected faculty, researchers, and staff active in the life sciences at Cornell. The true innovation of this site is this last feature, a continuously updated database of life scientists at Cornell with contact information, departmental affiliations, specializations, professional background, education, research interests, publications, current projects, etc. Using Vivo, researchers can now instantly see who on campus is working on a particular research topic, read the latest publications of colleagues, and develop exciting collaborations across departments. Here is a sample faculty page from Vivo.

I recently chatted with Medha Devare, Life Sciences and Bioinformatics Specialist at Cornell’s Mann Library (and one of Vivo’s creators), at a Columbia conference. She mentioned how one of their objectives has been to automate the People section of the site so that contact and other information can automatically be generated from HR and other administrative departments. Faculty update their list of current publications and research interests once a year using a standard Web form. Additional data is gathered and added to the site by work-study students.

The project has just received a grant to expand the database to include all academic departments at Cornell. Viva Vivo!