Reasons for not liking Turnitin include the perspective that this is somewhat of a “band-aid” solution to a much bigger moral or ethical problem. By that I mean, it seems to me that it would be much better to educate students on the ethical issues surrounding plagiarism, copyright, etc. than to rely upon a commercial service that has its faults and is not necessarily accurate in its evaluation of potential plagiarism. There have been some studies or research that shows that students who attend a school that emphasizes this broader approach are much less likely to plagiarize. (There was an interesting debate about this whole thing at Taylor when I was till there. I wasn’t directly involved in it but a faculty committee evaluated Turnitin and like services and rejected implementation of this solution in favor of the broader educational and ethical approach. I don’t know if that decision has been modified or changed since I left.)

Another reason for disliking the use of Turnitin is that it seems to me that it assumes a “guilty until proven innocent” kind of attitude on the part of schools who use it.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, I do not like the fact that use of such services is in most cases mandatory or forced upon students. What this means is that they are required to give up rights to their own works by submitting them to an online service such as Turnitin. This has caused some well-publicized student “revolts” in a few schools here and there.

I know on the other hand that there are many perhaps equally convincing arguments in favor of using this kind of service. One reason, e.g., is that it can help reduce the burden on professors who are overwhelmed with student input in the form of papers and with the fact that it is easier than ever before to plagiarize, given the technology and generally easy access to information on the Internet that is so prevalent today.