Myself, Coding, Ranting, and Madness

All Your Coursework Are Belong To...Who?

I don't think that British Law will ever cease to amaze me at some level. I first stumbled across this issue two weeks ago whilst doing me research for me Digital Economy Act.

Now, it doesn't come as too much of a surprise to me that, when I submit a piece of coursework, I also submit some of my rights over it. I'm still trying to find out to exactly what extend I give away my work, but it looks like it becomes a joint ownership situation1. However, it can get a lot more complicated when you think about all the other companies that might be able to get their hands into it.

As with all these things, I've got a specific example in mind - anti-plagiarism software (and, more specifically, TurnItIn, because it has already been determined that they do some of the things I'm going to discuss). Good plagiarism detection needs to be checking against two things: 'professional' sources - the articles and books that students may be expected to read and then tempted to quote form without formal citation. The other is to look for collusion between peers; groups working together to produce better work, or people recycling work from previous years. It's this last one which causes the greatest concern: in order to detect this kind of plagiarism, you need to keep the catalogue of all work that the system has ever seen. And that's exactly what they do: the front page of the TurnItIn website proudly declares:

135+ million archived student papers

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.

Thankfully 'Communications' exclude all of the papers submitted to the site (along with any personally identifiable information), so TurnItIn isn't just going to wander off with all of my work2. But other businesses might have less...friendly practices.

Edit: Since I originally read it, I have noticed a large section of making claims about violations of copyright at the end of the TurnItIn usage policy. It looks like the outrage raised by others on this topic has been taken to heart, because I haven't noticed anyone else mentioning it.

Q. Can I object to my work being stored in the [Turnitin database] system? A. If a copy was legitimately made of your assignment for submission to Turnitin, then you do not have a right to object to the work being stored on copyright grounds.

Q. Can my students refuse permission to have their personal details and assignments processed by the Turnitin service? A. The Data Protection Act 1998 sets out when and how personal data can be ‘processed’. For any institution to validly process personal data, it must comply with one of the two conditions in Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act 1998. These are:

• Condition 1: "The data subject has given his consent to the processing."
• Condition 6: "(1) The processing is necessary for the purposes of legitimate interests pursued by the data controller or by the third party or parties to whom the data are disclosed, except where the processing is unwarranted in any particular case by reason of prejudice to the rights and freedoms or legitimate interests of the data subject.”

The [university] will ask for the student’s consent during the registration process at the start of the year. If consent is given, condition 1 is fulfilled. Without consent, the institution may use condition 6 to process the data, on the basis that quality of marking and detection of academic deceit are legitimate interests of the institution.

So, what can be done about it? Well, as a programmer it's reasonably easy for me to side step the system by using any GPL library, as this forces all derived work into the public domain - although I still don't own it, it does stop any possibility of another group licensing it for profit.

As for everyone else, poke around and see how it's handled for you. I've been trying to find out about the exact terms I hand coursework in under, what anti-plagiarism software is used, and whether condition six from the Data Protection Act is used or condoned. Who knows, you might find something interesting: you might even feel like posting a comment3.

1. 1 ↑ This is based on the half-formed answers from my tutor. My emails to Imperial College's Registry is, as yet, unanswered. As is my one to the legislation section of the National Archives. But that's a story for another day :).
2. 2 ↑ Not that's there's anything worthwhile in there :P
3. 3 ↑ One of these days. One of these days it will happen...