By Ame Phitwong Senior Staff Writer
There is no policy in each specific department that requires professors to use the anti-plagiarism software, MyDropBox, but a number of professors rely on it to ensure students do their own work.
The site allows students to upload their papers and then checks the work against a database of online sources. Any string of words taken verbatim from a source in the database is highlighted by the site in a final report which also determines the percentage of the paper the student plagiarized.
Direct quotes within the student's paper are usually deemed "plagiarism" by MyDropBox, so student's will likely find that the site determines a small percentage of their paper to be plagiarized.
English professor John Orr said the use of MyDropBox is part of a package deal with McGraw Hill, the company the department orders books from.
Before the program, Orr said he had to Google sentences to search for plagiarism. Orr said he could recall two cases in the past where MyDropBox didn't catch anything, but then the instructors went to Google and found a match.
"I see a fair amount of student writing, and I have a good idea of what they can or cannot do. If a phrase is too beautifully written, I'll jut Google it," Orr said.
Orr believes a lot of plagiarism is accidental due to poor paraphrasing or citing, but there are times when students intentionally plagiarize. Orr recommends paraphrasing sentence by sentence rather than word by word, otherwise, only a word or two is different, rather than paraphrasing an idea.
"Don't use a source you don't understand. You'll end up plagiarizing," he said.
Orr said he is unsure of the benefits of MyDropBox if he still has to use Google, but believes it is serving some useful function.
If plagiarism is detected, Orr said a paper can be given an F grade, but the student won't fail the class and may have an option to revise it up to a C grade. Each detection is reported to the dean, however, and two reports can call for an expulsion from the university.
"People want shortcuts. Some of it's a fear of one's own work," said communication professor Michael Rabby.
Rabby requires students in his classes to turn in all of their assignments to MyDropBox. He said the technology is important and that professors should take advantage of it.
"It's easy to get a paper off the Internet, but it's easier to bust people. You don't want to be in that situation - it's not a fun talk to have," he said.
Rabby said common sense is important in interpreting the information from MyDropBox, but that "it's pretty difficult evidence to argue against."
Senior Megan Nelson said she feels indifferent about the MyDropBox and has used it in multiple classes.
"I guess it's useful to find plagiarism without all that extra work on the professor's side. How would you even detect it otherwise?" Nelson said.
She doesn't find it a hassle to submit her paper and thinks the program benefits professors more than students.
English Department Chair Herman Asarnow takes plagiarism personally.
"I couldn't think of a worse thing to undermine how I want my class to be. I tell (students) that it would be a personal insult and hope they respect me enough not to (plagiarize)," Asarnow said. He believes MyDropBox is a way to assure honest people who work hard on their papers that plagiarism is not acceptable and is being monitored.
"It could be seen as 'we think everyone is a cheater,' but we view it more as a kind of protection," he said. "If you borrow anything, it doesn't diminish you to say you borrowed it or to give it credit. It's a good thing because we're a community of scholars," he said.
Biology professor Amelia Ahern-Rindell said that she uses MyDropBox for the writing assignments in her biology classes. Ahern-Rindell said the program is more for students to self-check their work to ensure proper paraphrasing and referencing is used. She said she tries to structure the assignments so that it is difficult to plagiarize and pays attention to the report summaries from MyDropBox.
Senior Brigid O'Kane doesn't mind the program, but doesn't think it is very useful.
"I've never had it tell me I plagiarized, but it'll match some funny things like citations or references, which make the percentage score higher than it should be," O'Kane said.
Communication professor Jeff Kerrsen-Griep said the software tells him where students go for information. He also gets an indication of intended versus unintended plagiarism from the software.
"Students freak about the score because you did a great job on source citations," Kerrsen-Griep said. "The score looks terrible, but everything is original."
Before the software was available, Kerrsen-Griep, like Orr, had to type sentences into Google or talk to colleagues to detect plagiarism. Although he still communicates with other instructors, he likes having MyDropBox as a resource and is satisfied with the program.
"This program encourages people to do their own work. It's easier and more cost effective to do your own work," Kerrsen-Griep said.
Jenny Walsh, director of Web Services, said that MyDropBox is independent from her department and is maintained outside the university.
