Turnitin: Wondering if this is too harsh

[Clancy Ratliff]

Hi everyone,

I've been thinking about this a lot and would like to have your opinions. My university has Turnitin, as many of ours do. I talk regularly and at length (at orientation, in my pedagogy seminars) about the problems with Turnitin. However, quite a few of our graduate instructors use it anyway, rave about it, and recommend it to each other. I have even pointedly told them, "I wouldn't mention using Turnitin in a job interview if I were you." 

I'm just so exasperated with the whole thing that I'm thinking of taking it a step further, to recommendation letters. As in, if someone asks me to write them a rec letter, I would say

something to the effect of, "I want to be clear that if I write this letter, I would state the fact that you use Turnitin in your teaching, which I have advised teachers in our writing program not to do." 

I don't want to 1.) sabotage people's careers; or 2.) drive Turnitin usage underground in our writing program. But it feels so dishonest to me to not say anything at all about it, and they can always just ask someone else for a letter. 

Your thoughts? I feel like I'm at a crossroads with this, and I'm wondering if some of you have already thought through this matter.

Clancy Ratliff, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Assistant Director of First-Year Writing
Department of English
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
http://culturecat.net/portfolio/

[Clancy Ratliff]

[Nick Carbone]

Hi Clancy,

I'm not sure that using Turnitin.com is a strike against candidates on the job market. There are places where using it will be seen as a positive.  So the item in the letter might have the exact opposite effect in some cases. 

With the diminution of tenure, and the trend for faculty who do find full time jobs, much less tenure track, is to do so at institutions smaller than the ones they degreed from (see http://bit.ly/elitephd), the chances are very good that a lot of your students will apply to places that use Turnitin and will be glad they're familiar with it.

Even if you strongly worded a line that you disapprove of their use of it, at a campus where the use of it is accepted and maybe encouraged, that disapproval might even be seen as a good thing, with this kind of logic: this candidate decided to use something _we like here_ despite being urged not to. That validates our decision to use Turnitin.com and makes this candidate someone who will help make our investment in it more valuable.

My question, and I know this may not be the place to discuss it, is this: what is about Turnitin.com that makes it so attractive despite your urging and teaching against its use? 

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Intellectual Property Caucus" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to intellectual-property-caucus+unsub...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

nick.carbone at gmail dot com
http://ncarbone.blogspot.com

[Timothy Amidon]

...What is about Turnitin.com that makes it so attractive despite your urging and teaching against its use?...

#automation

Timothy R. Amidon, Ph.D. 

Assistant Professor | Department of English | Colorado State University

Assistant Professor | Department of Environmental and Occupational Health | Colorado School of Public Health

Faculty Affiliate | Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis

Associate Editor | Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, & Pedagogy

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to intellectual-property-caucus+unsubs...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

nick.carbone at gmail dot com
http://ncarbone.blogspot.com

[ble...@comcast.net]

Clancy,

I had to let this one sit for a bit. Knowing you as I do, I know this isn't you throwing your weight around. I see the frustration. Maybe you tell them  that if they use Turnitin despite all you've said, they better come to you with a compelling reason that using it benefits students, teaching, and learning, and why you should overlook that when they come to seek a letter of recommendation. 

For me, it also gets to being willing to learn from someone who has invested quite a bit of time and thought in this area. If they are willing to overlook the wisdom and knowledge you offer, what does that say about them as potential colleagues? Is it just this one area? Are there other areas where they sidestep sound advice?

Bradley

---

From: "Clancy Ratliff" <cla...@louisiana.edu>
To: intellectual-p...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2017 7:07:47 AM
Subject: Turnitin: Wondering if this is too harsh

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Intellectual Property Caucus" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to intellectual-propert...@googlegroups.com.

[Clancy Ratliff]

Thanks for these thoughts. Nick, I agree with what you're saying, too -- there certainly are places that would LOVE reading that in a rec letter. Maybe I can just communicate my position so clearly and bluntly that those people won't even try to get me to write a letter for them in the first place.

Are there other areas where they sidestep sound advice? Good question. Without going into too much detail, the answer is yes. 

Clancy Ratliff, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Assistant Director of First-Year Writing
Department of English
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
http://culturecat.net/portfolio/

On Wed, Nov 8, 2017 at 12:21 PM, <ble...@comcast.net> wrote:

Clancy,

I had to let this one sit for a bit. Knowing you as I do, I know this isn't you throwing your weight around. I see the frustration. Maybe you tell them  that if they use Turnitin despite all you've said, they better come to you with a compelling reason that using it benefits students, teaching, and learning, and why you should overlook that when they come to seek a letter of recommendation. 

For me, it also gets to being willing to learn from someone who has invested quite a bit of time and thought in this area. If they are willing to overlook the wisdom and knowledge you offer, what does that say about them as potential colleagues? Is it just this one area? Are there other areas where they sidestep sound advice?

Bradley

---

From: "Clancy Ratliff" <cla...@louisiana.edu>
To: intellectual-property-caucus@googlegroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, November 7, 2017 7:07:47 AM
Subject: Turnitin: Wondering if this is too harsh

Hi everyone,

I've been thinking about this a lot and would like to have your opinions. My university has Turnitin, as many of ours do. I talk regularly and at length (at orientation, in my pedagogy seminars) about the problems with Turnitin. However, quite a few of our graduate instructors use it anyway, rave about it, and recommend it to each other. I have even pointedly told them, "I wouldn't mention using Turnitin in a job interview if I were you." 

I'm just so exasperated with the whole thing that I'm thinking of taking it a step further, to recommendation letters. As in, if someone asks me to write them a rec letter, I would say

something to the effect of, "I want to be clear that if I write this letter, I would state the fact that you use Turnitin in your teaching, which I have advised teachers in our writing program not to do." 

I don't want to 1.) sabotage people's careers; or 2.) drive Turnitin usage underground in our writing program. But it feels so dishonest to me to not say anything at all about it, and they can always just ask someone else for a letter. 

Your thoughts? I feel like I'm at a crossroads with this, and I'm wondering if some of you have already thought through this matter.

Clancy Ratliff, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Assistant Director of First-Year Writing
Department of English
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
http://culturecat.net/portfolio/

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Intellectual Property Caucus" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to intellectual-property-caucus+unsubs...@googlegroups.com.

For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

--

---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Intellectual Property Caucus" group.

To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to intellectual-property-caucus+unsubs...@googlegroups.com.