Turnitin: what students need to know
By MARTIN K. KUNGMEYER
Staff Reporter
MWK 1 40@PSU.EDU
Turnitin
Know
What Students Need to
It is quite possible that you,
along with hundreds of thousands
of other students around the
country will be asked to submit
your work to the Turnitin
database to check for plagiarism.
While Turnitin may be a very useful
tool for detecting and preventing
plagiarism, the Intellectual
Property Caucus
of the Conference
on College
Composition and
Communication
(CCCC-IP) warns
that agreeing to
use such a service
"presents risks which
students might not
anticipate or fully
understand."
On their website
and in their
literature, Turnitin
represents that the
service is perfectly
legal and that there
are no potential
problems. The
company advises us that "one
of America's top law firms" has
formed a "legal opinion that
Turnitin's use of student work
complies with FERPA, COPPA
and copyright laws. . ." The same
document goes on to say that ". . .
we have concluded that [Turnitin's]
use does not pose a significant risk
Super hero delegates:
A guide to the delegate process
By ALLISON MILLS
Staff Reporter
MXA923@PSU.EDU
"It's all about the delegates,"
Senator Barack Obama said in
late January. Countless headlines
report that Senator Hillary Clinton
is wooing the superdelegates and
that she is fighting to reseat Florida
and Michigan's delegates at the
Democratic National Convention.
Senator John McCain is less than
300 delegates away from officially
becoming the Republican presidential
candidate. But what exactly is a
delegate? If you're unsure, you're
hardly in the minority.
Put into simplest terms, delegates
are generally party activists or local
political leaders from both Democrat
and Republican parties who choose
their presidential nominees at their
national conventions. The delegate
system exists in both parties to
ensure the most representative and
competitive candidates become the
presidential candidates.
However, similarities between
Democrat and Republican delegates
and their delegate processes end
there. Not only do delegates and
the rules regarding them differ from
party to party, but also from state
to state and even by congressional
district.
In this election, there will be 2,380
Republican delegates deciding their
candidate. Most will be pledged
delegates whose states' primary or
caucus results decide their votes
but anywhere from six to twenty
percent will be unpledged delegates.
Unpledged delegates may choose to
support any candidate. Unpledged
delegates rarely decide the candidate.
To win the nomination, a candidate
must only win a simple majority of
delegates. Senator John McCain,
for example, will likely earn the
necessary 1,191 delegates before the
Republican National Convention,
and therefore will not need to concern
himself with wooing the unpledged
delegates.
The Republican delegates are
distributed among both congressional
districts and statewide, depending
on the state. This election year
a total of 74 delegates will be
representing Pennsylvania at the
Republican National Convention.
All Pennsylvania delegates will
be unpledged, since 62 of the total
74 delegates will be elected in the
of infringement of any copyright in
written works submitted to Turnitin
for evaluation." Contrary to this
legal conclusion, and conspicuously
missing from the site is a notice that
Turnitin's parent company,
iParadigm, is currently being sued
for copyright infringement.
According to the Washington
Post, in March 2007,
two McLean High School students
and two Arizona high school students
filed a lawsuit' in U.S. District
Court against Turnitin. Maria Glod
turnitin
A service of iParadigms, LLC
explains, "One of the McLean
High plaintiffs wrote a paper titled
`What Lies Beyond the Horizon.'
It was submitted to Turnitin with
instructions that it not be archived,
but it was."
Penn State briefly recognizes the
dangers that Turnitin presents,
but doesn't seem to warn students
April 22 primary. The delegates will
be proportionally allotted to each
congressional district. While other
states operate like Pennsylvania,
some operate on a winner-take-all
system, where the winning candidate
receives all of that state's delegates.
Still others proportionally pledge
delegates to candidates in accordance
with the popular vote.
As of now, the Democratic
presidential candidate will be
decided by 4,049 delegates, of whom
approximately 20 percent will be
superdelegates. Superdelegates are
simply what the Democratic Party
calls their unpledged delegates.
Superdelegates may support any
candidate, while pledged delegates
are proportionally given to any
candidate earning at least 15% of the
popular vote in the state.
Like the Republican delegate
process, the Democratic candidate
needs a simple majority to win the
nomination. Unlike the current
frontrunner circumstance of the
Republican Party, superdelegates are
likely to be the deciding factor at the
Democratic National Convention.
Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack
Photo courtesy of google.com
Democrats TOTAL DELEGATES
A-1 g Barack Manta
Pkodged: 1,184
Superd•Oegoteit 185
~ Total: 1,369
Hilary Clinton
4 .11, 11 Pledg•d: 1,031
Supsidellegates 236
Totot
1,267
Election Center
Republicans * TOTAL DELEGATES
aJohn McCain
Pledged: 967
Uopledged RNC 66
Total 1,033
/I Mike Huckabee
pkidged: 244
Unpledged RUC 3
Tait: 247
Election Center
Photo courtesy of cnn com
If figuring out who to vote for was not hard
enough, the delegate process of the primaries
can make national elections a nightmare for
some.
of potential problems. Buried
at the bottom of a document
titled "Information for Faculty"
the university notes "The use
of . . . tools like Turnitin.com is
somewhat controversial," then
cites issues such as "infringement
on student copyright and student
privacy as well as the free,
uncompensated
student work to generate a
profit for a private business."
As demonstrated by the lawsuit,
the copyright infringement
concern is very
real, but what about
privacy, profiteering
and other concerns?
The Family
Educational Rights
and Privacy Act
(FERPA) governs
student privacy.
Turnitin says that
the service does not
violate the terms of
FERPA. Citing the
recent Supreme Court
ruling of Owasso
Independent School
District v. Falvo,
Turnitin claims that
to its database are
not considered a part of students'
"educational record" at the time
of submission and thus outside the
scope of FERPA. Also, Turnitin
claims that the service does not
divulge any personally identifying
information.
What Turnitin does not point out
is that FERPA compliance relies
Obama have been neck-in-neck in
this presidential race, always within
hundreds of delegates from each
other; neither candidate is close to
the 2,025 delegates needed to win.
Pennsylvania will have 188 delegates
total, 30 of whom are considered
superdelegates. The superdelegates
include Governor Ed Rendell, one
U.S. Senator, 11 U.S. Representatives,
and one distinguished party leader.
At the state committee in June, the
other three superdelegates will be
chosen by the Pennsylvania State
Democratic Committee. So far 12
have declared their
support for Clinton,
three for Obama.
They may change
their support,
however, up until the
Democratic National
Convention. The 103
district delegates
will be distributed
proportionally to
candidates after the
primary, but the
winner of the state
will also receive
an addition 55
delegates.
If, at the beginning
of the Democratic
National
Needed 10 Win: 2,025
Needed to WYE 1,191
take place, but
Norman Omstein, a
U.S. political expert at the American
Enterprise Institute, predicts there
is only a "30 percent chance" of
such a situation. Superdelegates
were instated to prevent brokered
conventions.
While it may seem as though your
voice and vote don't matter in the
grand scheme of things, they really
do. Super- and unpledged delegates
make up only a small percentage of all
delegates and most of the remaining
delegates are allotted to candidates
by proportion of your vote. So vote
in the April 22 primary, because your
vote will make a difference.
submitted
papers
Convention, it is
unknown whether
Obama or Clinton
will emerge with
the presidential
nomination, it willbe
the first "brokered"
or contested
convention since
1952. In a brokered
convention,
negotiations must
upon legal loopholes as well as
the cooperation of third parties to
remain compliant. For example,
Turnitin asks that the student
or instructor submit the work
before grading or recording in the
student's official record. The
company sophistically concludes
therefore, the paper "is not
considered an education record
at that time, and FERPA does not
apply." Sara Hoff explains, ". . .
FERPA only applies to "educational
records," and papers are only
considered "educational records"
after they are graded." Therefore,
if a professor grades a paper, and
then decides to submit it to Turnitin,
there is a potential problem.
If a professor or student forgets
to remove all personal identifying
information, then FERPA is
implicated. Turnitin does not
strip off personally identifying
information, nor does it check to
see if the paper has been graded
before submission. Therefore, when
using Turnitin, a student's privacy
is only as good as the third party
submitting the paper.
Turnitin offers some contractual
challenges to students as well.
In legal jargon, the license
to use the service would be
considered an adhesion contract.
This means that the terms of
the license are offered on a take
it or leave-it basis, and they
heavily favor the corporation.
For example, one of the terms of the
agreement is that the content of the
student's paper survives intact for
"future use as part of [the Turnitin]
Are you comfortable in your genes:
Eating disorders tackled at PSH
By KEARY HORNER
Guest Reporter
KAH 1 006@PSU.EDU
According to the National Association
of Eating Disorders, up to 24 million
people in the United States suffer from
an eating disorder—anorexia nervosa,
bulimia, or binge eating disorder. This
is triple the amount of people living
with AIDS.
Students at Penn State Harrisburg
recently had the opportunity to
participate in eating disorder education
and prevention as part of National
Eating Disorder Awareness Week
(February 24 to March 1, 2008).
The weeklong program, "Are
You Comfortable in Your Genes?"
featured eating disorder screenings,
information, and "Broken Mirrors:
A Program About Eating Disorders,
Body Image, and Healing," by
actress, comedian, and eating disorder
• Photo courtesy of google.com
affect many college students so this past week at
education and prevention of disorders as part of
National Eating Disorder week.
Eating disorders
PSI-I focused on
survivor, Stacey Prussman. Prussman
spoke on Tuesday February 26 in the
Gallery Lounge of her own struggles
with eating disorders and her ongoing
recovery.
The three main types of eating
disorders are anorexia nervosa, (self
starvation and excessive weight loss),
bulimia nervosa (binging-or eating
large amounts of food-followed by
purging), and binge eating disorder
or compulsive overeating (periods
of eating beyond being comfortably
full often accompanied by fasting or
aggressive dieting).
The majority of people with eating
disorders are women, but a growing
number of men struggle with them
THE CAPITAL TIMES
database." What exactly does
that mean? Nobody really knows.
It could mean that the twenty
page paper you worked on all last
semester will be sold to a third party
without consulting you.
Another potential problem for
Penn State students is that ". .
. arbitration shall take place in
Alameda County, California. . ."
This means that Turnitin users waive
their right to a trial in a court of law.
Instead, "any and all disputes,
claims
arising out of or relating
to these Terms and Conditions that are
not resolved by mutual agreement"
must go to binding arbitration
on the other side of the country.
You should also remember that
Turnitin "may revise these Terms
and Conditions at any time, and by
your continued use of the Site agree
to be bound by future revisions."
To summarize, your intellectual
property will be stored indefinitely,
potentially eternally, by a third party
who may do with it as they please.
They can change the terms of the
agreement whenever, and however
they like, and the only recourse a
student has is to travel across the
country to an arbitrator.
Although a small, there is a
certain population at Penn State
who are minors. By adopting and
implementing Turnitin, it seems
that Penn State expects minors to
enter into a adhesion contract with
a third party vendor who intends to
use the minor's intellectual property
for profit. This seems legally and
morally suspect.
as well. According to the NAED, 10
percent of anorexics and bulimics
are male. Men, however, are less
likely to seek treatment due to the
diseases' stigma as a "feminine" one.
Of growing concern is what Arnold
Anderson, M.D. has called "reverse
anorexia," in which men believe
they can never be big enough. They
exercise and monitor their food and
weight obsessively in order to achieve
the "v
-shaped torso" and muscular
physique which is portrayed as the
dominant image of bodily perfection
for men in the media.
Prussman is a comedienne and
actress. She has had roles on "The
Howard Stern Radio Show" on the
E! channel, ABC's "Hope and Faith,"
in feature films and off-Broadway
musicals, and has had her work
published in several books. She is
also an eating disorder survivor and
had become an educator.
Her own struggles with eating
disorders are the inspiration for her
work. Prussman's issues
with food and weight loss
began when she was only
8 years old, when she
auditioned for the role
of "Annie" in a theatre
production. As she came
offstage, she overheard an
agent remark "There are
no fat Armies," to another
child.
She recalls that when she
returned home, her mother
took away her cookies and
replaced them with carrot
sticks, and even picked the
marshmallows from her
"She did the right thing,
bought healthier foods—
but it was the first time my
food was being messed
around with, I think that triggered a lot
of the control [issues] with food...it
was a validation of the bad comment,
subconsciously, not even meaning to
do anything wrong. And [my mother]
was also on a diet herself then. She
became weight-conscious, and I saw
that."
Prussman continued to struggle
with food-control and weight issues
throughout high school and college.
By the time she began college at
SUNY-Albany, exercise, eating, and
food were fulltime obsessions. The
stress of the new experience and
absence of her mother to help control
her food intake led her to purging. This
experience allows her to empathize
March 3, 2008
Finally, Turnitin creates a dilemma
whereby a student's education may
be based on agreeing to the terms of
a contract with a third party. What
happens when a student is unwilling
or unable to agree Turnitin's Terms
of Use? Penn State does not appear
to have a policy covering this.
Besides copyright, privacy and other
legal problems, the use of Turnitin
offers some moral and ethical
problems as well. The first problem
is that Turnitin makes a profit from
students populating its database.
controversies
The Turnitin contains over 40
million papers with 100,000 new
documents added daily. Steven
Longenecker reported that "Turnitln
posted profits of $lO mill ion in 2003."
While Robert Vanderhye estimates
that in 2006, Turnitin "made
$BO million with costs that are
insignificant." Vanderhye has
accused the Turnitin's founder of
stealing from students.
Penn State has the duty to
enforce academic integrity; that
should not be compromised.
Penn State also has a duty to
its students, and the legal and
moral rights of those students
should be balanced while
addressing academic integrity.
Ironically, Turnitin copies
student's papers to show that
copying papers is wrong, and the
entire business model relies on
collecting, copying and storing
student's intellectual property.
Because of that, we as student
should question whether
Turnitin helps Penn State meet its
obligations to students.
with other college students who may
be struggling with eating disorders.
She notes that "The stress of school,
anxiety, or maybe friends with bad
food attitudes and body image issues,"
can all be triggers for college students'
struggles with food and body image.
According to the National Association
of Eating Disorders, one in four
college-aged women will have some
sort of eating disorder throughout
their college career.
Prussman tried numerous diets
and other methods in addition to her
eating disorder, in order to control her
weight before seeking treatment—the
Nutrisystem diet, the "Cabbage Soup
Diet", fasting all day and eating only
at night, Slim Fast, herbal laxatives
and diuretics, even Dollar-Store pills
that were labeled "WAIT Loss Pills."
She eventually partook in a colonic at
spa, which was her breaking point.
Afterwards, she became so sick that
she was rushed to the hospital where
a psychologist was called in after her
doctor's initial tests. Prussman was
told that if her potassium levels sunk
any lower, she could die.
She sought treatment and now
helps others through her stand-up
comedy and performances on college
campuses. She notes that speaking
about her experience has helped her
heal.
"I think all of America sees these
magazines, and they think that's what
the ideal American dream is--everyone
wants to look like a movie star, but
there's a lot of mixed messages going
on. On page one, 'Nicole Ritchie has
anorexia,' then on page seven, 'Nicole
Ritchie looks fabulous in this Armani
dress.'"
Prussman stresses that "Eating
disorders are serious diseases...we
don't know who really has eating
disorders—just because you look
thinner doesn't mean you have one.
We have to take that judgement out.
She notes that if someone suspects
that a friend or loved one has potential
issues with eating disorders, the most
important thing is to approach them
and find out what the underlying
issues or stressors may be. In a non
judgemental way, offer concern,
support, and help.
Additional information and assistance
is available through Counseling
Services in W-117 Olmsted (948-
6025), Health Services in W-102
Olmsted (948-6015), or through
the National Association of Eating
Disorders' website http://vvvvwedap.
org