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Copy monopoly
Concerns over monopoly of anti-plagiarism market .
Academics have voiced concerns that Turnitin ’ s proposal to buy competitor Ouriginal would give the company a near monopoly of the anti-plagiarism market , reducing diversity and giving the company a “ treasure trove of data ”.
Ouriginial is a Stockholm-based company that formed last year when European text-matching companies Urkund and PlagScan merged , Times Higher Education ( THE ) reported . Turnitin ’ s plan to acquire Ouriginal is “ subject to regulatory approvals ”, but , if approved , will mean the California-based company will have a near monopoly of the text-matching market .
Last June Turnitin acquired Unicheck , following its absorption of US-based VeriCite in 2018 .
According to estimates by Justin Menard , a Canadian business analyst , Turnitin ’ s purchase of Ouriginal would give the company “ some 97 per cent of the plagiarism detection platforms market in Asia , 96 per cent in Africa , 88 per cent in Europe , 86 per cent in Oceania , 83 per cent in the Middle East , 77 per cent in Latin America and 67 per cent in North America ”.
While semantic analysis expert at Mendel University in the Czech Republic Tomáš Foltýnek argues that “ the combination of the two services ’ databases would improve the coverage of their text-matching capabilities ”, he also believes that monopolies never serve the interests of users .
“ If you don ’ t have competition , you are not motivated to improve services ,” he said .
“ If they decide to merge , they lose their incentive to improve features like translation plagiarism detection or authorship identification to help detect contract cheating .”
A spokeswoman for Turnitin said no decisions had been made regarding the “ post-closing product roadmap ”, adding the company was “ continually improving [ its ] product portfolio ”.
While not all academics are concerned about the potential merger , concerns have also been expressed about Turnitin ’ s burgeoning amount of intellectual property . ■
Student experience
Work experience guaranteed for all Swinburne undergrads .
Swinburne University has guaranteed real work experience for every undergraduate student from 2021 in a strategic move to make its graduates more employable in an increasingly competitive environment .
It ’ s one of many initiatives from the university to enhance their graduates ’ work prospects and provide future-focused courses .
Utilising a network of over 1,100 government , industry and community partners , including Adobe , Medibank , NAB , Bendigo Bank , Metro Trains and the CSIRO , the aim of the Work Integrated Learning ( WIL ) program is to have students apply their academic learning in a practical workplace environment , gaining valuable insight and connections to better enhance their future employment prospects .
“ We are focused on investing in our students ’ futures by aligning them to the very best partners in industry – across sectors like science , technology , business , IT and others ,” Swinburne vicechancellor Professor Pascale Quester said .
“ We believe incorporating meaningful industry experience provides a more seamless transition to the world of work , by leveraging the intrinsic value of learning-by-doing .”
Swinburne was one of the first Australian universities to offer industry placements back in the 1960s , initiating a partnership with car manufacturer GM Holden .
Alongside its WIL program for undergraduates , Swinburne has also launched a series of short online “ bootcamp '' graduate certificate courses that will be available on-campus and through its online arm , Swinburne Online .
Focused on the digital and STEM skills of learners , courses include Professional Analytics and Programming , and Development and Product Management with the curriculum , including real-life projects developed by industry partners including Atlassian , Tableau and Dropbox .
The 16-week accelerated courses were designed in response to the rising number of graduates looking to make a career change in a job market heavily impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic . “ In a rapidly transforming world of work , Swinburne is committed to helping leaders to be effective by partnering with companies that have valuable insights into what the future workforce needs ,” Professor Chris Pilgrim , deputy vice-chancellor ( Academic ) – Interim said . ■
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