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We start by seeing what the tools say they do and comparing that to what they actually do. But the work asks educators to do more than simply look at the platform’s own web site, which more often than not says only the very best things (and sometimes directly misleading things) about the company and its tool. We encourage participants to do research — to find forums, articles, and blog posts written about the platform, to read the tool’s terms of service, and even to tweet questions directly to the company’s CEO.
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14 Aug 17
jtucker-ipArticle says Tii does not represent itself as should, that it pretends to support a "pedagogy lifestyle"
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02 Aug 17
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18 Jul 17
Mark GlynnThe case against #Turnitin. How students "challenge a system that has distrust at its core" https://t.co/7SiZ9guLs9… https://t.co/rqKQdRO45A
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Apostolos K.Students often find themselves uploading their content — their creative work — into the learning management system. via Pocket
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01 Jul 17
Eoin O'DellRT @DrRimmer: A Guide for Resisting Edtech: The Case Against #Turnitin via @lltripp https://t.co/4n3Mmoymb2
#copyright #privacy #edtech -
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At the Digital Pedagogy Lab Institutes where we’ve taught, there’s one exercise in particular we return to again and again. In our “crap detection” exercise (named for
Rheingold’s use of the term ), participants use a rubric to assess one of a number of digital tools. The tools are pitted, head to head, in a sort of edtech celebrity deathmatch. Participants compare Blackboard and Canvas, for instance, or WordPress and Medium, Twitter and Facebook, Genius and Hypothes.is.We start by seeing what the tools say they do and comparing that to what they actually do. But the work asks educators to do more than simply look at the platform’s own web site, which more often than not says only the very best things (and sometimes directly misleading things) about the company and its tool. We encourage participants to do research — to find forums, articles, and blog posts written about the platform, to read the tool’s terms of service, and even to tweet questions directly to the company’s CEO.
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- Who owns the tool? What is the name of the company, the CEO? What are their politics? What does the tool say it does? What does it actually do?
- What data are we required to provide in order to use the tool (login, e-mail, birthdate, etc.)? What flexibility do we have to be anonymous, or to protect our data? Where is data housed; who owns the data? What are the implications for in-class use? Will others be able to use/copy/own our work there?
- How does this tool act or not act as a mediator for our pedagogies? Does the tool attempt to dictate our pedagogies? How is its design pedagogical? Or exactly not pedagogical? Does the tool offer a way that “learning can most deeply and intimately begin”?
Here’s the rubric for the exercise:
Over time, the exercise has evolved as the educators we’ve worked with have developed further questions through their research. Accessibility, for example, has always been an implicit component of the activity, which we’ve now brought more distinctly to the fore, adding these questions: How accessible is the tool? For a blind student? For a hearing-impaired student? For a student with a learning disability? For introverts? For extroverts? Etc.
What statements does the company make about accessibility? Ultimately, this is a critical thinking exercise aimed at asking critical questions, empowering critical relationships, encouraging new digital literacies.
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19 Jun 17
Tania Sheko"educators should never be in the business of removing student agency." @Jessifer @slamteacher #digped #digcizhttps://t.co/NoK8bQG9jN
— ℳąhą Bąℓi مها بالي (@Bali_Maha) June 24, 2017
"educators should never be in the business of removing student agency." @Jessifer @slamteacher #digped #digciz
https://t.co/NoK8bQG9jNdigciz IFTTT Twitter turnitin web literacy digital literacies edtech digped plagiarism pedagogy
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18 Jun 17
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maksmom13A funny thing happened on the way to academic integrity. Plagiarism detection software (PDS), like Turnitin, has seized control of student intellectual property. While students who use Turnitin are discouraged from copying other work, the company itself can strip mine and sell student work for profit.
anti-edtech turnitin academic integrity intellectual property
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A funny thing happened on the way to academic integrity. Plagiarism detection software (PDS), like Turnitin, has seized control of student intellectual property. While students who use Turnitin are discouraged from copying other work, the company itself can strip mine and sell student work for profit.
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Developing these critical multiliteracies is vital if we want scholars and students — and all the digital citizenry — to retain ownership over their intellectual property, their data, their privacy, their ideas, their voices. Even tools we love — that have potential to do good work in the world — need careful scrutiny. It is, in fact, part of our care for those tools and students who use them that demands we approach educational technology critically.
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17 Jun 17
Geo ParadigmA new @hybridped piece from me and @slamteacher on Critical Digital Literacies, Turnitin, and opting out of edtech. https://t.co/Lz1JzFpHc7
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A funny thing happened on the way to academic integrity. Plagiarism detection software (PDS), like Turnitin, has seized control of student intellectual property. While students who use Turnitin are discouraged from copying other work, the company itself can strip mine and sell student work for profit. For this bait-and-switch to succeed, Turnitin relies upon the uncritical adoption of their platform by universities, colleges, community colleges, and K12 schools. All institutions that, in theory, have critical thinking as a core value in their educational missions. And yet they are complicit in the abuse of students by corporations like Turnitin.
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Every day, we participate in a digital culture owned and operated by others — designers, engineers, technologists, CEOs — who have come to understand how easily they can harvest our intellectual property, data, and the minute details of our lives. To resist this (or even to more consciously participate in it), we need skills that allow us to “read” our world (in the Freirean sense) and to act with agency.
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Developing these critical multiliteracies is vital if we want scholars and students — and all the digital citizenry — to retain ownership over their intellectual property, their data, their privacy, their ideas, their voices. Even tools we love — that have potential to do good work in the world — need careful scrutiny. It is, in fact, part of our care for those tools and students who use them that demands we approach educational technology critically.
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Becoming acquainted with the fundamentals of Web credibility testing is easier than learning the multiplication tables.
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- Who owns the tool? What is the name of the company, the CEO? What are their politics? What does the tool say it does? What does it actually do?
- What data are we required to provide in order to use the tool (login, e-mail, birthdate, etc.)? What flexibility do we have to be anonymous, or to protect our data? Where is data housed; who owns the data? What are the implications for in-class use? Will others be able to use/copy/own our work there?
- How does this tool act or not act as a mediator for our pedagogies? Does the tool attempt to dictate our pedagogies? How is its design pedagogical? Or exactly not pedagogical? Does the tool offer a way that “learning can most deeply and intimately begin”?
Here’s the rubric for the exercise:
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What lies at the heart of these literacies also forms the primary concern of critical digital pedagogy: that is, agency. The agency to know, understand, and thereby be able to act upon, create, or resist one’s reality. For the student, this can mean anything from knowing how and why to read terms of service for a digital product or platform; recognizing the availability of networks and community in digital spaces, even in the LMS; understanding the multitude of ways that digital identity can be built, compromised, and protected; discovering methods for establishing presence and voice, and the wherewithal to reach out to others who are trying to discover the same.
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Because so much of educational technology runs on the labor of students and teachers, profiting off the work they do in the course of a day, quarter, or semester, it’s imperative that we understand deeply our relationship to that technology — and more importantly the relationship, or “arranged marriage,” we are brokering for students.
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Because what’s especially problematic in all of this is that instructors compel students to comply with the terms of these software and tools. And administrators or institutions compel faculty to compel students to comply. Meanwhile, everyone involved is being sold a “product,” some of which, like Turnitin, are designed to eat our intellectual property and spit out control and hierarchy on the other end. When adopting new platforms, we shouldn’t invest in or cede control to for-profit companies more interested in profit than education. And, when our institutions (or teachers) make unethical choices, we must (if we are able) find ways to say “no.”
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Let’s look closer at Turnitin’s terms of service, keeping in mind that complying with these terms is not optional for students required to submit their work to Turnitin.
Any communications or material of any kind that you e-mail, post, or transmit through the Site (excluding personally identifiable information of students and any papers submitted to the Site), including, questions, comments, suggestions, and other data and information (your “Communications”) will be treated as non-confidential and nonproprietary. You grant Turnitin a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, world-wide, irrevocable license to reproduce, transmit, display, disclose, and otherwise use your Communications on the Site or elsewhere for our business purposes. We are free to use any ideas, concepts, techniques, know-how in your Communications for any purpose, including, but not limited to, the development and use of products and services based on the Communications. [emphasis added]
As Jesse wrote in a piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education: “What we see there is a blur of words and phrases separated by commas, of which ‘royalty-free, perpetual, world-wide, irrevocable’ are but a scary few. The rat-a-tat-tat of nouns, verbs, and adjectives is so bewildering that almost anyone would blindly click ‘agree’ just to avoid the deluge of legalese. But these words are serious and their ramifications pedagogical.” Note also that this rather crucial paragraph is currently buried in the middle of Turnitin’s TOS, over 5000 words in.
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The gist: when you upload work to Turnitin, your property is, in no reasonable sense, YOUR property. Every essay students submit — representing hours, days, or even years of work — becomes part of the Turnitin database, which is then sold to universities. According to the company’s website, as of this writing, Turnitin has a “non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable license” to more than 734 million student papers.
734 million student papers.
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There’s something terribly parasitic about a service that plays on our insecurity about students and our fears of cheating.
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16 Jun 17
Van PiercyA new @hybridped piece from me and @slamteacher on Critical Digital Literacies, Turnitin, and opting out of edtech. https://t.co/Lz1JzFpHc7
"When our institutions (or teachers) adopt unethical edtech tools, we must (if we are able) find ways to say 'no.'" https://t.co/Lz1JzFpHc7 -
dean groomAs a critical educational technologist I think this is too important not to share https://t.co/23x78DAAvt 'The case against TurnItIn'
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Sheri EdwardsHave you #digciz folk seen this? Now here is a conversation @Jessifer @slamteacher https://t.co/anDznXhaBU
I think my students may find this #Turnitin op-ed interesting. Not sure if our ac. tech. folks will: https://t.co/Du1eIB0PIj #digciz #digped -
Mark SmithersAs a critical educational technologist I think this is too important not to share https://t.co/23x78DAAvt 'The case against TurnItIn'
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15 Jun 17
David GoodrichStudents often find themselves uploading their content — their creative work — into the learning management system. via Pocket http://bit.ly/2sFcByT June 15, 2017 at 07:04PM
Students often find themselves uploading their content — their creative work — into the learning management system. via Pocket http://bit.ly/2sFcByT June 15, 2017 at 07:12PM
A new @hybridped piece from me and @slamteacher on Critical Digital Literacies, Turnitin, and opting out of edtech. https://t.co/Lz1JzFpHc7
Fantastic rubric for critical evaluation of #edtech: A Guide for Resisting Edtech https://t.co/2hcNhAT8gI #MAET #MSUepet #MSUhub -
juan domingo farnosA new @hybridped piece from me and @slamteacher on Critical Digital Literacies, Turnitin, and opting out of edtech. https://t.co/Lz1JzFpHc7
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Carina van Rooyen"Much of educational technology runs on the labor of students and teachers" https://t.co/OTpqUO9Fy7 #digped
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Ashley TanEducators should be looking under the hood of edtech tools and talking more directly with technologists. Meanwhile, edtech CEOs should be encouraged (and sometimes compelled) to better understand what happens in our classrooms. Otherwise, we end up with tools — like ProctorU and Turnitin — that not only try to anticipate (or invent) the needs of teachers, but ultimately do damage by working directly at odds with our pedagogies.
edtech turnitin pedagogy rubric evaluate evaluation technology
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Developing these critical multiliteracies is vital if we want scholars and students — and all the digital citizenry — to retain ownership over their intellectual property, their data, their privacy, their ideas, their voices.
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the primary concern of critical digital pedagogy: that is, agency
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The site even attempts to hide its core functionality behind a smokescreen; in the description for the “feedback studio,” plagiarism detection is called “similarity checking.”
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According to the company’s website, as of this writing, Turnitin has a royalty-free, perpetual, world-wide, irrevocable license to more than 734 million student papers.
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The abuse of student labor and intellectual property is only the beginning of the problem with Turnitin. If the company’s financial and legal model isn’t troubling enough, consider then how the application of its services affects the pedagogical relationship between students and teachers.
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the teaching moment (about attribution, citation, and scholarly generosity) is given away to an algorithm
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Turnitin relies on suspicion of plagiarism as an assumed quantity in the teacher-student relationship
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The Council of Writing Program Administrators has noted that “teachers often find themselves playing an adversarial role as ‘plagiarism police’ instead of a coaching role as educators
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In 2014, the Conference on College Composition and Communication, a branch of the National Council of Teachers of English, concluded that plagiarism detection services, like Turnitin by iParadigm, “create a hostile environment” in classrooms, “undermine students’ authority” over their own work, and violate student privacy
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