« Valentine, Kathryn. "Plagiarism as Literacy Practice: Recognizing and Rethinking Ethical Binaries." College Composition and Communication 58.1 (Sept. 2006): 89-109. | Main | Chronicling Turnitin »
September 16, 2006
Blogevent
A Turnitin representative has decided to engage compositionists in an open forum. Don't miss what's going on at Kairosnews, and do remember to pack a PBJ, martinis, a pith helmet, a folding chair, and your toolkit for contextual rhetorical analysis.
Apropos of which, I have to ask: What's eatin these guys? They're making millions every year and have repeatedly ignored my attempts to log onto their site and get the standard information that they offer to faculty. They've shown a disdain for engaging in debate. Yet suddenly now they're trying to have it both ways, putting up outrageous content on their site and then saying to compositionists, "We don't really mean that. We're going to take that down."
So why are they bothering? Do they actually think they're going to pursuade the Kairos audience? Are they worried that the Kairos audience is going to win the hearts and minds of all those educators who are buying Turnitin? They've done an outstanding job of selling their product to people who don't think critically about textuality. As Valentine's article establishes, one of the identities managed in plagiarism adjudication is that of the institution and the professor, both of whom are, through the adjudication, established as being on the side of academic integrity. The Turnitin program has the additional appeal of being wildly expensive, so that institutions buying it are, through cash outlay, accomplishing identity management. It also mechanizes Foucauldian surveillance, making it even more appealing to all those who regard students en masse as suspect characters.
Turnitin, in short, has it made. We compositionists may make some inroads on the Turnitin fan base, but until we've produced more research that has a quantitative component and that therefore can persuade an extra-comp&rhet audience, we're not going to substantially affect the hysteria that produces Turnitin subscriptions.
So why are they bothering?
Posted by senioritis at September 16, 2006 06:51 AM