Intervention poster and flyer

The essay factory

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1 July 2022 31 December 2022

Scotland Street School Museum, Glasgow

It’s always about who owns the machines; it’s about who benefits from one’s labor, from one’s craft.

'Education Technology's Completely Over', Audrey Watters (2017)

University of edinburgh

Scotland Street School Museum, Glasgow

THE ESSAY FACTORY

1 July -31 December 2022

Resisting Plagiarism Detection Softwares in the age of ed-tech corporations

www.theessayfactory.co.uk/

Scotland Street School Museum, Glasgow

The Essay Factory and TurnItIn: why

The exhibition

14 years later, not much has changed. Our work is still fed to TurnItIn, which database we enrich from a position of coerced consent, or from a position where no consent is given at all. Much like a factory, TurnItIn still appropriates of the result of our labour, and capitalizes on it. To add insult to injury, TurnItIn's algorithm also stands against us as a "black box": we have no understanding of the basis on which the software judges us. From such a position, all we can do is experiment, raise awereness, resist and protest against the commodification of our work. Together. This is the aim of our activities. All students are welcome to participate in them, and we encourage all kinds of contributions. Any action, reflection and question is fundamental!

The exhibition will take place from July 1st, 2022, to December 31st, 2022; for a total of six months. We are honored to have our first exhibition taking place at the Scotland Street School Museum (Glasgow), in occasion of its reopening. The exhibition will consist of three sections. First, participants will be welcomed by a touchscreen interactive graphic, which will allow them to explore all the complex facets and impact that characterize TurnItIn. Secondly, participants will sit in a space resembling a classroom, and will have the opportunity to complete two activities using TurnItIn, called "The Art of Flattery"and "Everyday Plagiarism". These will be based on global texts and languages, in order to experiment more widely with the software, also with non-Western written outputs. Participants will therefore receive an "Originality report", which they will be able to discuss and to assess. Did the software say you plagiarized? Did you actually plagiarize? Was the score dependent on the source you used? Having done this experiment, do you think that TurnItIn impacts the concept of plagiarism? How? More information on: www.theessayfactory.co.uk/

If you attend a British University, you have probably heard about TurnItIn, a plagiarism detection software (PDS) used within 98% of UK universities. In 2007, four high-school students filed a lawsuit against TurnItIn. The lawsuit gained widespread support amongst McLean high school students and parents, where two of the four students came from, as parents and students alike were concerned that "original, intellectual work produced in a public school is being transferred to, archived by, and utilized for profit by a private company against the student’s wishes, but with the permission of the school administration”. In 2008, the judge ruled against the students, and the case was lost. The reason being the students clicking on the "I Agree" button, and therefore acceoting the company's terms of service, even though that consent came from a position of power imbalance.

What is a Plagiarism Detection Software (PDS)?

internet documents and data, a repository of previously submitted work, publications, papers, and subscription repository of periodicals, journals, and publications. Turnitin then creates an 'Originality Report', which identifies where the text within a student submission has matched another source,

A Plagiarism Detection Software identifies content similarity matches. It works by scanning a database of content, identifying the text components and comparing them to the components, or content, of other another textwork. Based on that comparison, the software will generate a report that highlights the content matches. In particular, Turnitin matches the text within an assignment by comparing it against an archive of

Scotland Street School Museum, Glasgow