The following question was posed to Randy Cohen who does the column, The Ethicist, for the New York Times Magazine.
I'd be curious to hear what other teachers think. I am stunned that the parent is not upset that her daughter and other students might be cheating but instead believes the professor acted unethically by not telling them that he would be checking for plagiarism.
The parent is saying that he believes most of the students are cheating, but it's just a matter of "cleaning" things up. Cheating is evidently OK with him.
"Entrapment" would involve tempting students to cheat in the first place; this isn't entrapment.
On the other hand, unless the professor is mainly interested in catching (as opposed to preventing) plagiarism, he should announce the Turnitin twist beforehand. Personally, I'd rather prevent; much less work.
Dale
Posted by: Dale | April 16, 2009 at 07:41 PM
I'm with you, Dale. It's much easier to prevent cheating than to deal with the paperwork afterwards!
Posted by: Dr. Delaney Kirk | April 17, 2009 at 11:07 AM
I use turnitin.com for almost all of my papers that students submit. However, I use it more for prevention than for detection. I allow students to see their originality reports and resubmit their papers if needed. I have found that some professors don't understand the originality reports though and believe that anything above zero percent is plagiarism. For me, turnitin is only one piece of a larger conversation about writing, research, and authority as well as documentation.
Posted by: Amy | May 15, 2009 at 11:29 PM