8/4/2019 Sputnik Issue 3 - Page 11

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The Sputnik // Wednesday September 14 11

OPINIONLin Abdul Rahman // opinion@thesputnik.ca

This past week, airwaves all over theworld have been full, nay, clogged with

news and analysis of what happened onthat fateful day ten years ago.

September 11th had become the crux

of the 21st century and virtually everynews network has jumped on the bandwagon and cashed in on the worlds collec-

tive grief. Yet, my sentiment towards thismonumental point in history is no strongerthan, Its been ten years. Lets move on al-

ready.This event had been so far from my

mind that when Yahoo! News featured a

story about the photographer who cap-tured the falling man, I wondered, Whyon earth are they bringing this up now? I

then realized that the 10-year anniversaryof 9/11 was but several days away.

When 9/11 occurred, I was studying ar-chitecture at the University of TechnologyMalaysia. I watched the catastrophic event

unfold over lunch break on a small televi-sion set in the cafeteria alongside my class-mates. In the Architectural History class

immediately after lunch, my professor ex-plained what a great architectural tragedyit was that a landmark like the World Trade

Centre should suffer such a fate. From thatday on, I had always viewed 9/11 througha desensitized architectural lens.

For those who witnessed the humancost of 9/11, the tragedy will always be awound that can be easily pricked to shed

fresh blood. To Iraqi and Afghan civilians,9/11 is yet another terrorist attack whosecasualty pales in comparison to the thou-

sands of lives lost every month since the USinvasion.

I therefore do not blame the public forinvoking the annual torrent of tears to re-member the dead. On this date for every

year since 2001, weve been reminded ofthe thousands of lives lost and of the needto exercise every measure to apprehend the

people purportedly responsible for it.What I do have issues with is the way the

casualties of 9/11 are constantly invoked to

paradoxically justify more violence. Thethree thousand lives lost was, and still is,used to silence any objections to the trillions

of dollars spent on military bases overseas.It is the all-access-pass that has kicked thedoors to our private lives wide open. It is

the invisible hand that pushes us throughairport scanners to expose our private be-ings. It is the warrant that allows civilians

to be arrested, questioned or held captivewithout charge for years.

I wont try to perform yet another post-mortem on 9/11 or the events that fol-lowed; that has been done to death and

there is no end to the debate on how 9/11changed the world. Case in point: a simplemessage of condolence posted on Facebook

by a friend of mine triggered an avalancheof responses arguing both for and againstthe Bush administrations invasion of Af-

ghanistan and Iraq. As much as I hate toadmit it, there are strong arguments for itfrom both sides of the fence. The question,

to me, is whether it still has anything to dowith what happened on September 11 tenyears ago.

9/11 ten years later

Plagiarism, like most dirty laundry, isntoften aired in the proverbial public square

of academia. For the most part, its a prob-lem that ies under the radar, reintroducedto students only when papers are due and

insinuated at by an ethics policy or, morepointedly, thrown in the spotlight when

students are asked to submit their works tothe online database, Turn It In.

Well, the tide has certainly changed. Lastyear, when I interviewed Jesse Rossenfeld,

a former McGill University student whorefused to submit his paper to Turn It In,he was a lonely voice crying injustice, and

although he won the right to a personal ex-emption, he did not succeed in getting ridof the program altogether.

Recently, Dalhousie University has takenthat plunge. Following in the footsteps of afew Southern American schools, its Student

Union has won the battle to get Turn It Inout of the school completely; this meansthere is no longer a contract between the

two parties and professors no longer useTurn It In to check for plagiarism.This was a pleasant surprise, as after

talking with the Student Union last winter,I was left with the distinct impression that

the ght was proving to be tedious and dif-cult. Amazingly, student leaders stuck to

the ght, citing the protectionof intellectual property andnecessary privacy.

I consider this to be

an incredibly importantvictory, even though I

know many naysay-ers will scoff at my

optimism

a n d

call TurnIt In auseful or

p r a c t i c a ltool. I would like to make one argumentagainst this; after critically examining the

program, its illusion of prestige was blownaway. Rossenfeld and other academicsall cited that a professor who is on his or

her game would be able to nail any sort ofplagiarism ten ways to Sunday, and never

need the program to nd major issues. Thisis illuminated by the fact that Turn It In

is infamous for its false positives and

questionable algorithm thatsstrike one, as far as Im con-cerned.

Next, theres the issue ofintellectual property. Most stu-

dents, when asked, arent par-ticularly over the moon

about giv-

ing theirwork to ac o m p a n y

that will thenuse it to build their database and even mar-ket their product citing these papers. Strike

two.Lastly, and most importantly, we should be seriously concerned about allowing

a business to come into the classroom asteaching mercenaries. The thing to note, of

course, about mercenaries is that they haveabsolutely no stake in improving the situ-ation. For Turn It In, the worst possible

scenario would be a decrease in plagiarismor, more seriously yet, ethical policies andpractices that would bridge the divide be-

tween student and teacher which will ad-dress the root causes of plagiarism. Strike

three.In the end, although this tiny step may

seem insignicant, its important to remem-ber that in academia plagiarism shouldnt

be our scarlet letter. It is a real issue, ofcourse, but not one that should make ushang our heads in shame. What we should

be judged on, measured by and scrutinizedfor is how we deal with it. Do we pull to-gether and stress a higher sense of ethics?

Do we strive to come up with more creativeassignments? Do we reach out and providemore support services for students try-

ing to write papers? Unfortunately, manyschools unlike Dalhousie University arent making the switch.

Turn It In Losing GroundLeisha Senko

Staff

Lin Abdul Rahman

Section Editor