“A student at McGill University has won the right to have his assignments marked without first submitting them to an American, anti-plagiarism website. Jesse Rosenfeld refused to submit three assignments for his second-year economics class to Turnitin.com, a website that compares submitted works to other student essays in its database, as well as to documents on the web and published research papers.
The site prepares an ‘originality report’ on how the submitted work compares with other documents. It can also evaluate students’ papers for spelling, grammar and structural errors.
McGill was using the website as part of a trial use of its services, which expired in December. Students submitted their papers to the website for a preliminary evaluation, after which their work was marked by instructors.
Rosenfeld, 19, said he refused to submit his work to the website because it’s offensive to most students who are honest and work hard to create original material.”
More at http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/01/16/mcgill_turnitin030116