Confessions of a User

I've been wanting to respond to some of the Turnitin debates over at Kairosnews all week. I just haven't had time. I've also been considering submitting a proposal about Turnitin best and worst practices to a local technology conference. In light of that, here are some thoughts I've jotted down this morning.


Turnitin Problems

Turnitin does not distinguish between things that have been properly quoted and documented and things that have not. The percentage matched number cannot be used to determine whether a student has cheated.

Turnitin is inconsistent. In one student's essay, he had several quotes from the Bible. Some were marked as unoriginal; others were not. We know that the entire Bible is available online in all of its various translations. Anything quoted from it should have shown up as unoriginal.

Turnitin even marks the headings on the papers as unoriginal. We know that a certain amount of the percentage matched number can be accounted for simply in the student spelling the instructor's name correctly.

One student had several sentences marked as unoriginal in an essay about Harry Potter. The link provided by Turnitin for where the sentences had been copied took me to a message board where all of the users were posting under anonymous screen names. The “unoriginal sentences” were not all together in one place. They were scattered throughout various threads and topics on the board. For all I know, the student was only quoting herself.

If essays are submitted to Turnitin in rough draft form, revisions of those same essays cannot be submitted without showing up as entirely plagiarized. This discourages teachers from having students submit rough drafts and using the originality reports as a teaching tool.

One student wrote an essay about her senior project in high school. The portions that showed up as matched were linked to an article in an educational journal about possible assignments for senior projects. No whole sentences were matched, only phrases. It is my thinking that the student had internalized the instructions for her assignment after spending so much time working on it. It is also my suspicion that the high school teacher, on the other hand, had lifted the assignment straight from a journal without changing a thing.

Turnitin only catches one form of cheating. If a student gets another student to write a paper, Turnitin can only catch that if more than one student has submitted the same paper to Turnitin.

Turnitin Worst Practices

** Accepting Turnitin's word as law (or even as true)--anything identified as plagiarized by Turnitin should be carefully reviewed by the instructor to determine why it was marked.
**Using the percentage matched number as an indicator of how many points should be deducted from an assignment for plagiarism—even if a student has incorrectly copied some sentences from sources, a portion of that number can be accounted for by things that do not constitute plagiarism.
**Submitting student work to Turnitin without informing the student that this will happen.
**Having students submit their own work to Turnitin without explaining to them exactly what it is or how it works.
**Submitting only final drafts to Turnitin without working with the student on identifying and correcting possible instances of plagiarism first.

Turnitin Better Practices

**Submitting rough drafts only to Turnitin and using the originality reports as opportunities for student revision rather than as proof of crimes.
**Recognizing that not all forms of “unorginality” are plagiarism.
**Using the originality reports as an opportunity to revise for lack of original thinking and/or original voice in writing as well as for outright plagiarism.
**Recognizing that some sharing of information and some internalizing of information is likely to show up in these reports in ways that do not constitute cheating.
**Having students submit their own papers to Turnitin and giving them open access to their own originality reports.
**Recognizing that students have to be taught how to avoid plagiarism before they can be expected to demonstrate expertise in avoiding it.
**Recognizing that information sharing is so prevalent in our common business and educational practices that students have good reason to expect that some degree of “borrowing” is acceptable in their writing unless they are told otherwise.

Like grammar checkers, plagiarism detection services are unreliable. They should not be the only way that plagiarism is dealt with in student writing, and they should not be used as a means of creating less work for the instructor. Used correctly, plagiarism detection services do require time and attention on the part of the instructor.

It is my thinking that people trained as writing instructors are the most likely people to understand how to avoid improper use of plagiarism detection services. Like grammar checkers, however, it is the people who understand how to use them who are the least likely to need them.

Though I have been using Turnitin as part of my department's adoption of the service, I agree with Becky Howard and others who have spoken out against it. I also agree that compositionists should be educating themselves on exactly how Turnitin works and exactly how it is being used so as to be better prepared to educate others in its possible pitfalls.

Academic Fantasies

There are some great discussions going on right now, but I'm too covered up with students and grading and committees to do any of them justice. Instead I'd just like to share a quick note about academic fantasies.

I finished my Ph.D. in 1996. Since then it has been my continuing dream to go back to school. There's just no life I love better than that of a grad student. Of course, anything I might want to take wouldn't actually advance my career. Often I consider ditching everything and running off to an MFA program. Hello. My Ph.D. is in creative writing. This wouldn't exactly be a move forward. Once I was going to apply for a Ph.D. program at Duke and just get a degree in another field of English. What can I say? I drove through North Carolina and thought it was pretty.

Often my fantasies actually stray toward other disciplines. I'd like MAs in history, philosophy, and graphic design.

I never fantasize about taking courses that would allow me to make more money. I'm just an arts and humanities girl through and through.

I could, however, change the particulars of my current job by getting another MA. Instead of two sections of literature and four sections of composition every semester, perhaps I could teach two lits, two comps, and two comparative religion classes. Wouldn't that be nice?

Ah, well. We all need our dreams.

The Year of the Pod

I started the year off not with a bang but with a cough. I've been fighting off bronchitis and generally feeling like a drag on everything lately. I do want to want to make my new school year resolutions and plans, however.

Lots of changes around here. We have a new president, new department chair, lots of shifts in dean positions. We've lost administrators to both retirement and death.

Overall, though, there is a very positive air around here, and even through my Nyquil hangovers I can feel it. There is just a kind of attitude that everyone is ready and willing to try new things. It's a good attitude to work with and around.

My new thing will be podcasting. I've been adding audio clips to my online class. Those are just little five minute mini-lectures to help jump start their study efforts. I'm going to expand that, though, into recording actual class discussions to make available online for my day students and my online students.

This all falls in line with the oral history I've now obligated myself to follow through with by getting my CCCC proposal accepted. All along I've held back on my plans to do oral history interviews because I wanted to podcast them, and I was never quite satisfied with the quality of recordings or with my own game plan for how to work out the technical logistics of it.

Because our new president is very interested in podcasting classroom lectures, though, this has all worked together to help me find a solution for the classroom and for the oral history project.

My current podcasting plan is to use my new laptop computer and a high sensitivity microphone for recording along with the program Audacity.

I also plan to steal some ideas from Derek and from Steven who seem to have been working on some of these same issues.

I'll let you know how it goes.

The Blogging Continues!

Joanna and I completed the 24-hour blogathon to raise money for Katrina victims in Pearlington, MS, but we aren't stopping there. We're going to keep going by adding at least one new thing a day to the Pearlington blog up until the Katrina anniversary on August 29. Please help us pass the word along, and if you weren't able to drop by to leave a comment during the blogathon, it's all still there. Come on over when you get a chance.

The Blogging Begins!

As you may or may not have noticed, the planned blogathon for Pearlington had to be postponed because I had a funeral to go to last weekend. Joanna and I are blogging all day today and all night tonight, however, on behalf of the small town of Pearlington, MS that was just obliterated by Katrina.

Come on over and contribute what you can, whether it's money, labor, or good old-fashioned good wishes.

Have Blog. Will Type For Charity.

Joanna and I are going to participate in Blogathon 2006 to raise money for rebuilding the small coastal town of Pearlington, Mississippi.

As anyone who has followed this blog knows, Pearlington was not merely devastated in Hurricane Katrina; it was decimated. I've done some volunteer work in Pearlington through University Baptist Church and The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Mississippi. I can attest first hand to how much the people of Pearlington have struggled this year and how much they are still struggling.

I will attest next Saturday, July 29 when we blog every thirty minutes for 24-hours straight for Pearlington.

Money donated through this blogathon will go to University Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It will be used to purchase building materials for people in Pearlington who lost their homes in Katrina.

Please help us spread the word, and if you are able, don't forget to click on the PayPal link at the Pearlington blog to leave a much appreciated donation.

Playing with Odeo

I've just discovered Odeo Studio, and I've taken that discovery as an opportunity to jump right in and do that pod thing everybody is so crazy about.

Podcasts, Access, Quality

I've been teaching online classes for the past few years that were really hybrids. They met on campus five or six times per semester, and the rest was online. Now we are converting those classes to fully online. This has all of our online instructors scrambling to make the online instruction a little more sophisticated. Currently, I'm experimenting with adding audio clips, and I have a few thoughts/questions.

(1) Should I be worried about whether I have students on dial-up who will have trouble accessing the audio files?

(2) Where can I get a better microphone than the piece of junk I got at Radio Shack without spending a whole lot of money?

(3) If I want to imbed some audio clips into PowerPoint presentations, how can I end up with a file that isn't impossibly large for posting online?

(4) Is it better for mini-lecture audio clips to be scripted and polished, or am I okay to just wing it and hope for the "natural" sound?

New Normal

This house is in Pearlington, MS. This is now a typical scene in Mississippi coastal towns. Many, many houses are sitting abandoned in this condition. It is overwhelming to think how much still needs to be done just to take care of storm clean up and meet basic necessities. At the same time it is heartening to see the sheer number of volunteers still showing up.

One group I met were high school students from Syracuse, NY on a civil rights tour of the South. They came to Pearlington for a service project as part of their trip. They learned important things that day like "Never open a refrigerator that's been sitting in a destroyed house for ten months." Some of them were also very excited about getting a close up look at some alligators.

Thumbs up to the teachers who put this together and the students who poured their hearts into the job.

Waveland

Monday evening I rode down the beachfront with a group of volunteers from North Carolina. I took this picture in Waveland. You can't really get the effect from the picture, but we were fascinated with this house because it was the only thing left standing for miles and because you could see from it just how high the storm surge had been. There had clearly been water in that third floor.

Also, we all agreed that we would have stopped to look at this house even before the storm.

To Pearlington I Go

I'm headed to Pearlington, MS this morning where I'm going work off and on this summer as a volunteer. Pearlington was absolutely wiped out by Katrina. The only business currently open there is a bar that is operating out of a tent. It once had a gas station, a grocery store, a bank, and a post office. All of that is gone now as are most of the houses.

I have to admit I'm pretty nervous about volunarily giving up things like flushing toilets and hot showers to camp out 70 miles away from my home, but the needs are tremendous in Pearlington, and I feel very humbled when I consider how the people there have been living all year.

Still, it's only about 25 miles from Slidell, and I'm not above burning up $3.00 a gallon gas in search of a clean bathroom. :)

Have a good summer, blogland. I'll see you soon. Probably very soon. My heart wants to help my neighbors as much as possible, but my back wants to come home and sleep in its own bed as much as possible.

Yo, Clancy!

Congrats!

Couldn't happen to a better blog.

Summer Reading

What's on your summer reading list?

I've been out of school for a week and a half now. So far I've read all seven of the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books, Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson, and Walking Across Egypt by Clyde Edgerton. I'm currently reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

The Ladies Detective Agency books are just a pure delight to read. I can't think of a better way to relax, but you do need plenty of tea and cake on hand to read these books. :)

Housekeeping is incredible. I had read Gilead by the same author previously, and it is equally amazing. There is a sort of deep, philosophical grace to the writing style. If you don't read anything else this summer, my suggestion is to go with Marilynne Robinson.

Walking Across Egypt is just sort of silly. I enjoyed it, and I'd read more of the same. I even related well to many of the details of Southern culture depicted in it, especially those details of Southern Baptist culture. At times, though, the hillbilly slap-stick is just a little overboard for me.

I haven't gotten very far into The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time yet, but I'm already prepared to be impressed. A number of people recommended this book to me, and I fully expect it to live up to its reputation.

On my summer wish list are Bel Canto by Ann Pratchett, Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee, and The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. These are all books I've heard good things about and have just never gotten around to.

I'm also planning to re-read Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, and The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. These are books I'm going to discuss with a summer reading group.

So what's on your list? Do you have anything good to recommend?

Hurricane Season is A-Coming

The Sun-Herald reports this morning that a major relief organization is pulling out of Waveland for the duration of Hurricane season.

The Morrell Foundation, a Utah-based relief group, has announced plans to pull out by Saturday, leaving a void in the volunteer effort to rebuild this Katrina-torn county.

The Morrell Foundation built a relief village at Buccaneer State Park just after the Aug. 29 storm, and has since housed thousands of out-of-town volunteers here to help haul debris, rebuild homes and just about whatever else was needed. The group also helped repair local spirits through holiday festivals and other gatherings.

According to a press release, the group is leaving the beachfront park because of the looming hurricane season. Weather conditions earlier this month that pushed saltwater over the beachfront road made it "abundantly apparent that our facilities would be unsafe for future volunteers," the release said.

I can't really blame them, but it still makes me sick to think of it. It also underscores the level of anxiety and uncertainty we are facing with the upcoming storm season.

The people who were living in solid houses that got blown away by Katrina are now in FEMA trailers or tents or cars. Places that were once used as shelters either no longer exist or have been banned by the government for use as shelters. And even without another hurricane, there are still whole towns along the Mississippi Gulf Coast where there are few jobs and essentially nowhere to purchase basic necessities. Residents could always drive to Slidell to stock up, I suppose--if they happen to have working vehicles, gasoline, and money.

We're looking at a grim, hot summer with or without the volunteer organizations. The steady presence of volunteers at least brings psychological comfort and the reassurance that things are being done. It brings hope that there is a normal to return to.

To watch a big volunteer group leave...

I'm sure I don't have to explain the psychological effect.

Remember Pearlington

Here is a blog with photos from Pearlington, Mississippi. I've been there several times this year to work as a volunteer. I've seen everything in these photos and more. Pearlington is in Hancock County at the mouth of the Pearl River. It, along with Waveland and Bay St. Louis, was really Ground Zero for Hurricane Katrina. This is where the eye made landfall. Pearlington, however, is several miles inland. The people there did not expect to be affected by the storm surge, yet their houses were completely submerged in water. Many of them did not have flood insurance. I've talked to several people there who lost everything and got almost nothing from the insurance companies. One house I worked on, for example, was about $2000 square feet. The owners are in their 60s and retired. They lost everything, including their grandchild's car and school books that were left behind when they evacuated. They got $8000 from the insurance company. That was for a tree that fell on the roof.

Anyone who stayed in Pearlington during the storm and lived to tell about it is a walking miracle.

TrinaTrauma

Doctor Daisy has a wonderful post on trauma theory.

I wanted to respond to it earlier, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to say. I still don't know. I want to say something probably for the same reason Dr. D. did. I'm very close to the subject of Katrina and trauma. My head is full of images of TrinaTrauma that I'm only just now starting to realize are not going to go away.

I have nothing smart to say about this.

All I have is the observation that I've now reached a stage where I want to say something.

At first I wanted to simply get out the information about what had happened or was happening. Beyond that I didn't know what I had to say.

I belong to a writing group, and most of the people in the group have said the same thing. They just aren't able to write in a creative way about Katrina yet. They might write in an informative way, but anything else falls into the realm of "nope, nope, not that, not yet."

Even now, I think the main reason I want to say something about the Trina is to abate my fear that people are forgetting. If I could take every single one of you by the hand and lead you through what I've seen and continue to witness in Hancock County, I would do it. If you could see for yourselves, you couldn't forget, and you couldn't not care, and you couldn't fail to want to do something to help.

So I'm going to give myself permission to blog about what it's been like to see absolutely nothing left in places where my memories used to live, what it's been like to watch my 74-year-old parents living in a gutted out house, what it's been like to learn how to use a hammer for the sake of total strangers who lived through the storm by swimming and climbing trees and hauling their grandmothers onto rooftops and their babies and puppies into boats.

Forgive me if I can't explain what it has to do with teaching composition.

Before and After, Green Oaks B&B, Biloxi

From The Sun Herald.

Poor, Poor, Pitiful Me

From the person who brought you the extremely nasty tirade against students that I linked to earlier...

Closed for Business

Not to be trite or to add to AP's feelings of persecution, but...um...grow up. Please.

The Grading Swamp

I graded 15 research papers today, and I feel like my head has been through the pea sheller (If you live somewhere where you don't have pea shellers, insert your own bad analogy here).

I've got to find a way to step it up. I've only just begun. Lot's more where that came from. And so forth...

I've also got to find a way to keep my sanity for the next few weeks, and I'm assuming most people who read this blog are feeling the same way right about now.

I don't have an answer, but my strategy so far is actually not much different than it was when I was the one turning in the research papers this time of year.

Eat lots of sugar. Drink lots of coffee. Let everything good and good for you in life fall by the wayside as you pretend someone else has been leaving the empty Funyun bags in your office trash can. Forget to go to committee meetings. Sign things only when people follow you to the bathroom waving them in your face. Let the mail pile up for days without looking at it (but obsessively check email). Skip lunch, but close the door and act like you went to lunch. Explain to the cats that what happens in the litter box stays in the litter box. Spend amazing amounts of time procrastinating by thinking about how much has to be done. Eat lots of sugar. Drink lots of coffee.

Did I miss anything?

Players and Haters

And I thought I was burned out.

Um...if you really hate students so much, have you considered that you may in fact be in the wrong profession?