Turnitin

The concept behind Turnitin is agreeable to most people, I would think. Plagiarism is becoming far too easy to do in today's world of advanced technology. Most would also agree that it is wrong to take credit for another's work. Because of this, I agree that measures must be put into place that discourage plagiarism. While having its flaws, I support the use of Turnitin. The fact that all student papers would be run through this system eliminates any bias. There are not just certain students who are chosen; all can and should be put through the scrutinizing process that is Turnitin. Just knowing that their papers will be put through this process will hopefully deter students from plagiarizing. In response to the comparison of some students who said running everyone's paper through Turnitin would be like drug-testing all students, I do not see the problem. If a student has nothing to hide, and testing all students may prevent one or two from actually doing drugs or plagiarizing (depending on the comparison being used), I would say that the system worked.
Having said all of this, I also agree that there is some merit behind the students' argument that their work is their intellectual property. There must be some way to reconcile the good that Turnitin accomplishes with the means it uses to get there. Finally, it bothers me that Turnitin is a for-profit organization. I am skeptical of for-profit educational services. I would like to perform more research on Turnitin before I form my final opinion of it.