After reading Sean and Jesse’s book, I agree with their point of plagiarism detection software is not functioning as a detect machine. In this digital era, personal information can be easily stolen by others. Merchants may sell their products to consumers more efficient based on tracking internet users’ purchase patterns. From educational technologies perspective, like Turnitin, it can directly access not only to uploader’s data but also their entire research paper and sell it without the original author’s permit.

    From their article, they mention how to retain the ownership of our intellectual property. First of all, developing critical digital literacies. Being loyal to certain tools may put you in the risk of disclosing personal information, users should manage their devices carefully. For educational platforms, they should be more aware of protecting student’s information and intellectual properties. Meanwhile, instructors must know which platform is the safest and suitable for distributing materials and conducting an online course.

    The purpose of plagiarism detection software is to detect the similarity of the uploaded paper. Indeed, there is a demand for checking if the paper is copying someone else work, but it is unethical to check it in this way. Every individual’s work should not be judged by a third party platform. Although Turnitin declares that it does not claim copyright ownership of any works submitted to their service and they are designed to protect and strengthen use’s copyright, Turnitin actively profits from the work of students are about $752 million (Morris & Stommel, 2018). The dramatic profit comes from a statement that allows Turnitin to use all uploaded materials for their business purpose. This statement is hidden in the middle of Turnitin’s terms of service, over 5000 words. But students have to allow that in order to detect their work. 

    Personally speaking, I truly understand that there is a possibility of copying other’s work; therefore, it generates a demand for detecting. Obviously, the detecting platform is not a good option in the long-run. The best solution will be solving the problem of mistrust of students and determine ethically if works are plagiarised.

Reference:

Morris, S. M., & Stommel, J. (2018). An urgency of teachers: The work of critical digital pedagogy. United States: Hybrid Pedagogy.