Members of Graduate Student Senate voiced concerns at last night's meeting about proposed modifications to the way Ohio University handles plagiarism.
The possible modifications include a statement of originality; a requirement that all students to submit work to www.Turnitin.com, a plagiarism detection database containing existing work, and a step-by-step plan for how the university will respond to suspected plagiarism.
One of the main concerns is that these proposals are strengthening the university's response to plagiarism without also strengthening students' rights to respond to accusations.
It is academic death to be accused of plagiarism
said Pete Wickman, president of the senate.
Shane Tilton, a former senate member who was filling in for Stephan Oechsle as vice president for Committees and Legislative Affairs, said he was concerned about a slight chance of a student's work matching up with someone else's on the database, even if the student didn't
actually plagiarize.
A few senators said they would like to be able to check their own work in the database before submitting it to the university because sometimes people copy without realizing it.
Wickman said he wants to make sure the university clearly defines plagiarism and informs students.
There are a lot of different standards for what constitutes plagiarism he said.
Creating a statement of originality could be problematic because it would make students liable in a legal sense for plagiarism instead of just an academic sense, Wickman said.
A major concern with using www.Turnitin.com is that students would be required to waive their intellectual property rights so the program can use their work when checking other papers.
This has been ruled legal for high school students, but Wickman said graduate student work is more valuable than high school work because it is usually published.
If they want our rights they should buy them
Wickman said.
1
News
Jackie Best
