Introduction:

“Online learning means the intervening agency of communication technologies has allowed instruction in higher education to happen across time and space without the physical co-presence of the instructor and students” (Major, 2015). With the innovation of technologies, the feasibility and flexibility of taking online courses are improving. According to Major’s research, there were 7.1 million students who took online courses in more than 2800 institutions of higher education by 2013. Generally, it is good to see online learning benefits everyone who has the demand for that, but it may derive unexpected problems. In this digital era, using networks allows us satisfying daily needs, because the internet can store our personal information for various purposes. Meanwhile, it also means everything on the internet is only a piece of data, but it is not that safe as people think. Personal information can be easily stolen by others. Merchants may sell their products to consumers more efficient based on tracking users’ purchase patterns. From the online learning perspective, some people may intentionally steal other’s intellectual properties. In this case, some well-known plagiarism detect tools, like Turnitin, we have no idea whether they are only just detecting if the paper is plagiarized. Our information and privacy are easily exposed to others; therefore, it is significant to protect our information.

Literature Review:

“The term ‘big data’ refers to the binding of advanced predictive tools with large data sets on human activity, with the aim of tracking, monitoring, analyzing, and disseminating this information (Martin, 2015).” Basically, we barely have privacy, because no matter we want to expose our information or not, other people may be able to figure out our records. Hence, Zuboff claims that surveillance capitalism is a new economic order that states human experience as free materials for hidden commercial practices of behavioral modification (2015). There is a strong interrelationship between surveillance capitalism and privacy. Surveillance is considered a profitable business model which generates profit by predicting user’s behavior and selling their information. 

“Turnitin is a web-based plagiarism software program used in 126 countries by over 875,000 educators and millions of students” (Vanacker, 2011). The purpose of this software is to detect if and to what extent the text in the student’s paper matches any of the sources in the database and generate a report to the instructors. In some institutions, instructors are allowed to ask students to upload their works to Turnitin and generate a similarity report. First of all, it is not an ethical way to judge the student’s work. It is unfair to students to only put their work in the software instead of judging it by the instructor’s understanding. Besides, Turnitin actively profits from the work of students are about $752 million (Morris & Stommel, 2018). It is not only an ethical issue but also a problem that this kind of platform is making a profit from student’s intellectual properties.

Discussion:

After reading a chapter from Morris’s book, I agree with their point of plagiarism detection software is not functioning as a detect machine. Such platforms, 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, taking online courses 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. Student’s intellectual property should be the priority.

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 user’s copyright, indeed, it is getting benefit from student’s work (Morris & Stommel, 2018). The dramatic profit comes from the following statement that allows Turnitin to use all uploaded materials for their business purpose. 

“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, worldwide, irrevocable license to reproduce, transmit, display, disclose, and otherwise use your Communications on the Site or elsewhere for our business purposes. “

This statement is hidden in the middle of Turnitin’s terms of service, over 5000 words. But students have to click agree in order to detect their work. 

Personally speaking, I truly understand that there is a possibility of copying work from others; therefore, it generates a demand for detecting. I am wondering if there is a possibility that plagiarism detect tools pay the institutions and ask them to check student’s work through detect tools. In this case, both institutions and plagiarism detect platforms can become better off. Obviously, using detecting platforms 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.

Recommendation:

No matter it is a face-to-face lecture or online course, a more ethical way of solving the problem of using plagiarism detect tools are spread out the percentage of the research paper. First of all, the percentage reduced from research paper can be assigned to other assignments which involve a higher degree of interaction. Therefore, instructors are able to evaluate every student and recognize how well the students are. Meanwhile, the assignments should be more open-ended to encourage students to communicate their thoughts. Instructors should take note about student’s assignments so that teachers can determine if the work is written by the students themselves. The point here is to trust every individual, but it is critical to ensure the paper is not completed by others. The instructors can judge that based on a student’s previous work and performance. Furthermore, testing the suspected students about the understanding of the paper is also a method of assessing the ownership of the paper.

Conclusion:

In my opinion, the trend of online courses is unstoppable and it is likely that online courses will gradually replace traditional lecture in the future. Thus, preventing this group of students from the impact on surveillance capitalism is important. Instructors should pay more attention to the safety of student’s personal information, and the platform for distributing materials. Students can increase awareness of their privacy and information as well. Determining the authorship of the paper is a complicated problem because it will extremely affect the students who are suspected if they are proven innocent. Using plagiarism is not the ideal way of checking if students are cheating, instructors may adjust the grade structure to reduce the probability of cheating as well.

Reflection: 

Online learning is a meaningful revolution of pedagogy, it allowed all the eligible students to have higher education, although it has a space to improve in various aspects. In the end, I hope student’s work can be fairly assessed, and more people can benefit from online learning.

Reference:

Major, C. H. (2015). “Teaching online: A guide to theory, research, and practice”.

Martin, K. (2015). Data aggregators, consumer data, and responsibility online: Who is tracking consumers online and should they stop? The Information Society, 32(1), 51-63. doi:10.1080/01972243.2015.1107166

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

Vanacker, B. (2011). Returning students’ right to access, choice and notice: A proposed code of ethics for instructors using Turnitin. Ethics and Information Technology, 13(4), 327-338. doi:10.1007/s10676-011-9277-3

Zuboff, S. (2015). Big other: Surveillance Capitalism and the Prospects of an Information Civilization. Journal of Information Technology, 30(1), 75-89. doi:10.1057/jit.2015.5