Issues of academic plagiarism in educational institutions
are often played out in the public arena. Media reports
that ‘scandals’ occur in universities where plagiarism has
gone undetected, or unpunished can undermine public
faith in the academic integrity of higher education. Antiplagiarism
software has been successfully marketed to
universities as a means through which to detect and deter
plagiarism. One commercially available product, Turnitin,
has been embraced and implemented in many
educational settings around the globe. Although Turnitin
has been heralded as an effective measure to combat
plagiarism, little empirical research has been undertaken
to examine user perceptions of its effectiveness. This
paper details a site-specific case study which explores the
perspectives of seven teachers across five faculties at
South-Coast University¹ about the effectiveness and
usability of Turnitin. The findings indicate that Turnitin
assists in detecting passages where text matches other
sources. However, the software does not indicate whether
plagiarism has occurred or not. That remains the decision
of the teacher. Additionally, such software should not be
considered a panacea for plagiarism. Students still
require explicit teaching of the concept of textual
attribution, often with subject-specific examples to
understand acknowledgement conventions within
academia.
