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Owens College and SafeAssign

I'm shocked to find out that Owens is using SafeAssign. I never cheat, and have no problems with teachers checking my work for plagiarism. However I find it unsettling that I have no option to opt out of the service.

Basically whenever I or another student (at any school who uses this) submits their homework/test/paper, we automatically forfeit our rights to the material. SafeAssign is allowed to keep your paper forever and datamine as long as they like.

Personally this sounds like a copyright issue. Granted I probably won't win a prize for a well written paper, but the idea that I have to forfeit my rights or give them a perpetual ownership over what I've written and let them do as they wish is a bit worrisome. I pay the school for a service, not the other way around.

Then again worse things going on in the world but this is just the icing.

Curious what you all think about it.

created by jshriver on Aug 22, 2008 at 11:39:32 am     Comments: 9

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Comments ... #

I believe that you are right it would be a copyright issue, since they are maintaining a separate copy from what you have provided, and all written works are automatically copyrighted (ironically even this post is copyrighted legally).SafeAssign can't even claim fair use, since they are directly profiting from having the copyrighted material to compare to. That said however the issue of copyright is probably with the school who provides them with the copyrighted material knowing full well what its use is going to be. However if anyone makes an issue of it schools will just include it in their handbook so that it is understood that all student work is accepted with the understanding that they giveup limited rights to the school and to SafeAssign.

posted by roygbiv on Aug 22, 2008 at 12:45:04 pm     #



A few thoughts:

1. I have taught at Owens, and it is my understanding that SafeAssign is a service that instructors may choose to use with the Blackboard platform. I have never heard any Owens administrator require the use of SafeAssign, and I have never used it in my classes there or at other colleges.

2. That being said, plagiarism is a considerable problem that continues to grow. Sometimes my students have copy-pasted small sections of material, and sometimes in a few arre cases they appropriated large chunks of papers from the Internet or electronic documents. While jshriver might be as pure as the driven snow, there is a growing number of students who think nothing of swiping someone else's intellectual property to make easier the task or writing research papers.

3. Type in "research papers" on Google and look at the many hundreds of sites selling papers to dupes with cash. While most of the papers available on these sites are garbage, there is a huge business in this stuff.

4. As far as intellectual property: you do not lose the rights to your work, but you certainly lose some control of your work, since it ends up in a database. The same could be said, though, if you published your paper on a blog or in a journal, since others could access it. Personally, I am more concerned about the loss of intellectual property rights by using MS-Word, since Microsoft in essence controls who can access my work when in a .doc or .docx format (i.e., those who purchase their software, though some open source word procesing programs are fairly reliable at cracking Microsoft's efforts to monopolize and control document access).

5. Personally I prefer to create assignments that are harder to plagiarize, rather than the traditional research paper on a well-worn topic about which millions of students have probably written. I am reluctant to discus my assignment strategies on this public forum (to stay a step ahead of potential cheaters), but I will certainly discuss this issue in a private email with instructors.

6. As someone who has graded, reviewed, or simply read at least a thousand term papers, there are a number of dead giveaways to the most common forms of plagiarism, and an experienced instructor usually notices some red flags that make a paper suspicious. I am of the opinion that some of these plagiarism sites and tools are designed for overworked instructors who find it hard to make time for the extra effort needed to ferret out plagiarism. When I assign a longer paper, I make students turn in a research prospectus, a preliminary bibliography, an outline, and a rough draft along the way. This makes it harder for students to "fake" a research paper, and deters much of the problem. Besides, when you structure a paper this way, then students aren't waiting until two days before the due date to start, when they panic and turn to paper mills.

posted by historymike on Aug 22, 2008 at 05:56:59 pm     #



Neat response historymike and I respect your views on things so was hoping you'd mention something.

I'm not as pure as the snow :) but I am a firm believer in not cheating and making your own way.

Like I mentioned at the bottom of my initial post there are more important things going on in the world. Just felt odd that when I had to turn in my homework I had to click an "I accept SafeAssign, blah blah blah".

Plus I wonder what kind of checks and balances this system has. I'm taking a weather course am I going to get pinged because the definition I used is nearly out of the book (definitions of things tend to be that way). Or is it more useful as you mentioned when sending multiple page reports where single common chunks aren't as straight forward.

For a teacher I can see this being useful. Having to grade 50+ papers can be daunting, and getting a quick "hey these 5 papers are 90% the same as something online" would be very useful. Though is that worth subjecting every student to a system of relatively unknown rules to catch a couple bad eggs?

Oh well off to get next weeks assignments done early so I wont have be so stressed during the work week :)

posted by jshriver on Aug 22, 2008 at 08:09:13 pm     #



Plagiarism is the like the hallmark of education. While they like to pretend they're stiff arming it, they're really holding hands.

The bureaucratic nature of education makes people strive for conformity and mind-numbing recycling. Brick and mortar.

Internets, libraries, coffee shops, parties, pubs are more synaptic... Schools are grave yards.

posted by charlatan on Aug 23, 2008 at 12:17:36 pm     #



Agreed, charlatan, that non-academic forums can produce stimulating intellectual discussions, and that the academic environment can sometimes breed conformity. Some of the most thought-provoking conversations in which I have participated have been far removed from the college classroom, and often with people who did not spend much time in formal education.

Yet nothing breeds conformity like the corporate and political worlds, IMHO. Despite some pressure in academia to conform to certain artificial social, intellectual, and political "norms," I find much less of this in academia than I ever did when I worked in the corporate world.

If I walked around campus with a dog-eared copy of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, no one would think twice. But just try to demonstrate any intellectual curiosity or artistic awareness in most corporate settings - you'll be branded as either a brainy freak or - even worse - a dangerous malcontent.

Schools - getting to your last comment - are "graveyards" only if students allow them to become lifeless. Demand the best from instructors, and prod lazy teachers who want to recycle the same tired old curricula. Ask pointed questions, and insist on explanations for material that is confusing to you. When I went back to school at age 36, I could be the classroom's biggest pain-in-the-arse, and young undergrads in my classes sometimes audibly groaned, but I got my money's worth for my college education.

posted by historymike on Aug 23, 2008 at 05:20:32 pm     #



SafeAssign, TurnItIn, etc. are all violators of copyright.

They make a profit off the work I am required to turn it, and at no point in signing up for classes did I ever legally sign off on any of my rights.

The college and the sites they require you to turn your papers into should all be given a statement that you are asserting copyright on your work and are not releasing any rights. Then you issue DMCA takedown notices three seconds after submitting the papers (be sure to copy ChillingEffects when you do this) and then sued when they fail to comply. Don't forget to contact the appropriate prosecutor and press criminal copyright infringement charges.

posted by anonymouscoward on Aug 24, 2008 at 08:25:04 pm     #



"As far as intellectual property: you do not lose the rights to your work, but you certainly lose some control of your work, since it ends up in a database.

BULLSHIT, MIKE.

TurnItIn.com's usage policy (OMG PLAGARISM!) http://turnitin.com/static/usage.html

Your License to Us: Unless otherwise indicated in this Site, including our Privacy Policy or in connection with one of our services, 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 non-proprietary. You grant iParadigms 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.

Your Communications: iParadigms may, but is not obligated to, monitor or review any areas of the Site where user Communications may be made available, including, but not limited to, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and other user forums. iParadigms, however, will have no liability related to the content of any such Communications, whether or not arising under the laws of copyright, defamation, privacy, obscenity, or otherwise. iParadigms retains the right to remove, in its sole discretion, Communications that include any material deemed abusive, defamatory, obscene, or otherwise inappropriate.
</blockquote>

(emphasis mine)

So, the minute I submit a paper, they automagically get a license FOREVER and ZERO LIABILITY... so I just lost all my rights to it because I granted them an IRREVOCABLE license.

posted by anonymouscoward on Aug 24, 2008 at 08:36:15 pm     #



There are many that will not care whether they give up their rights, and for them, that is fine.

As an 'aspiring' photographer, I have many photos I'd like to 'post' or enter into contests, but many want to retain the license to MY photo! One recently, something about pictures in and around Lake Erie was one I was interested in. I've got a GREAT shot of the Brig Niagara sailing past the Toledo Lighthouse. I wanted to enter it, but I'd lose the rights to it.

I don't think so!

posted by GraphicsGuy on Aug 24, 2008 at 09:24:51 pm     #



Umm, sorry A/C: read further in the Turnitin document to which you linked:

To the extent you are a student submitting a paper for review in connection with a class you are taking, then we may only use the content of your paper for the purpose of performing our services for your educational provider and for future use as part of our database.

And from the SafeAssign TOS:

By using the Services, you represent that you have the requisite authority to submit your end-users' papers to the Services. You and your end-users agree that papers submitted by your end-users shall be retained by Blackboard solely for the purpose of checking against other papers submitted by your end-users. Blackboard retains no ownership in the papers. Upon the termination of the Services for you, Blackboard may remove your end-users' papers from the Services and shall not be required to provide a copy of such papers to you prior to removal. To the extent that any of your end-users have consented to Blackboard for Blackboard to retain such end user's papers, the preceding removal requirement shall not apply... You and your end-users agree that any of your end-users' papers that are submitted ("User Content") as part of the Services, is and remains your sole property or the property of such end-user. By uploading or otherwise making available any User Content, you and your end-user automatically warrant that the owner has the right to transmit the User Content to SAFEASSIGN� and that such User Content may be utilized for the purpose of plagiarism detection and prevention. To the extent that your end-user authorizes the inclusion of the User Content in our Global Database, you agree that Blackboard may maintain a copy of such User Content indefinitely and may use the same for the purpose of plagiarism detection and prevention for other utilizing the Services.

Again, in principle I am in agreement that such plagiarism sites represent a potential threat to privacy and intellectual property, but they make no legal claim to your work for any other pourpose than data-mining. Whether they honor their TOS, of course, is another issue altogether.

posted by historymike on Aug 25, 2008 at 09:28:57 am     #