No limits, at least to which Turnitin will go to promote their product. According to Inside Higher Ed, the company sent out an email message to instructors this week offering to pay them to go and speak about plagiarism at the 2009 CCCC in San Francisco.  We’re talking about stealth speakers here, ones unidentified as being paid by Turnitin. I want to know, did anyone who is a rhetcomp person get this email? Turnitin is used at my school and not supported by the English Department, but then, I’ve made it very clear where I stand on its use and so have others. When I teach ENG 520 to future  English teachers this fall, they will be reading the Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Council Statement on Best Practices and the CCCC-IP Plagiarism Detection Services Statement, which I heartily agree with. And why shouldn’t I? I am an NCTE member, as are most people who teach writing.

I find it interesting that the person quoted in the article as receiving the email is NOT a rhet/comp person. He also, not surprisingly, was offended by the offer of pay for position:

Steven Epstein, director of the Science Studies Program at the University of California at San Diego, said he immediately sent a reply e-mail that he was “not for sale.”

“I was offended by the idea of being compensated by a company for making a scholarly presentation about the virtues of that company’s product,” he said via e-mail. “As a medical sociologist, I was struck by the apparent similarity to pharmaceutical industry marketing practices that have taken a lot of heat in recent years, such as when companies reward physicians who tout their products at conferences and other public events. I sincerely hope that any scholars who accept a ‘grant’ to talk about Turnitin.com preface their conference talks by disclosing that.”

I hope that Turnitin gets no takers within our discipline. I also hope this has the kind of fallout it should for Turnitin since it clearly shows just where their ethics are--in their wallet.

*Update* Rebecca Moore Howard was up early reading today also and in addition to any normal person’s concerns about the lack of ethics involved, wonders about this past year’s 4Cs. I admit, there was one panel with a positive spin that I wondered about too.