XU faculty will soon have a way of guarding against possible acts of plagiarism by the students. The University is exploring the use of Turnitin, a web-based plagiarism detection software that allows teachers to check how original the work of the student is. 

The software was introduced to XU during a lecture organized by the Instructional Materials Committee and the American Corner Library on Sept 15, 2010. Turnitin, which has been in use in the US since 1996 but launched in the country only last year, features an originality report function that detects plagiarism by scanning substantial text similarities between works submitted by the student and those from the Internet and online journals.

Web searches have become the conventional mode of research for many students because of their fast results. Although helpful, search engines such as Google and Yahoo facilitate access to information from the Internet that can easily be copied and pasted without attribution.

Softwares like Turnitin will hopefully dissuade students from committing plagiarism, the act of copying somebody else’s work and passing it off as one’s own, and encourage them to cite references and express their own ideas.

With Turnitin, teachers will be able to see in a matter of seconds if the student ripped the work of another author without acknowledgment. Turnitin runs an originality check for documents submitted to the program by scanning websites and databases. It shows how much of the work is original, provides links to sources for copied texts and even detects word replacements. 

XU is currently on a trial subscription and select faculty members have been trained in the use of Turnitin.

Related to plagiarism, another topic covered during the lecture is Philippine Copyright Infringement delivered by Atty Louie Calvario of the Intellectual Property Office. Calvario strongly encouraged institutions to come up with their own intellectual property policies for self-regulation within the parameters of the copyright law.

“The law only provides guidelines. We [in the IPO] also promote that institutions have their own guidelines… that don’t go against the copyright law,” Calvario said.

Xavier University already has an Intellectual Property Policy under review by the IPO.