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Complete control
Concerns raised over near monopoly of antiplagiarism market .
Experts 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 – provider of antiplagiarism software that is growing in popularity in schools – acquired Unicheck , following its absorption of US-based VeriCite in 2018 .
According to estimates by a Canadian business analyst , Tunitin ’ 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 ”.
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 . For instance , Foltýnek led a study of 15 web-based text matching systems between 2018 and 2019 . It concluded that Turnitin , Unicheck and Ouriginal ’ s predecessors – Urksund and PlagScan – were the toprated systems for coverage and useability . However , since publishing the study , Turnitin acquired UniCheck , and PlagScan and Urksund have been subsumed by Ouriginal .
“ So out of the four systems that scored among the best in our study , now we have only two ,” Foltýnek said .
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 ”. ■
Safe from harm
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell . Image : Christian Gilles
Debate erupts over allowing religious weapons on school grounds .
A fiery debate has erupted on the Today show about whether children should be able to take religious weapons to school following a teenager who was allegedly stabbed with a Sikh knife in Sydney .
Host Karl Stefanovic seemed on the fence about it admitting it was a “ difficult one ” as it was “ school safety versus religious freedom ”.
Broadcaster Chris Smith then chimed in and said “ you don ’ t put knives in the hands of immature human beings ”.
“ What sort of backward religious belief is this in the modern day ? It ’ s dangerous .”
A teenage boy who nearly killed a classmate during a playground fight was legally allowed to carry a miniature sword called a kirpan on the grounds at Glenwood High School – because it was classified a “ religious weapon ” by the education department .
The 14-year-old boy allegedly stabbed another male student , 16 , twice in the stomach with the weapon at the school in Sydney ’ s northwest on May 6 .
The 16-year-old boy was rushed to hospital while the other student , 14 , was charged with two counts of wounding a person with intent to cause grievous bodily harm .
The sword must be carried by baptised Sikhs at all times to remind them of their duty to “ uphold and defend the truth courageously ”.
NSW Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said religious weapons would be banned at public schools across the state .
“ I feel much more confident knowing that we put that plan in place as a policy … while we work through the legal issues that exist with the act .” ■
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