After a pilot program last spring yielded mixed results, the University has put on hold plans to use Turnitin.com, a commercial Web service, to detect plagiarism, Library and Technology Services officials said.In the summer of 2006, Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe formed a committee to discuss and implement turnitin.com for professors to use to determine if a student's paper bears significant similarity to other sources. During the trial period, faculty members used the program in their classes and gave feedback.

"Response to the pilot project was mixed," Chief University Librarian Susan Wawrzaszek said.

The committee has not yet reached a decision on the use of the software, Wawrzaszek said. The University might choose to allow a limited number of classes or faculty members to use the program, she said. The University will also decide if the program should be a blanket policy or if professors would decide individually whether or not to implement it.

To test a paper, an instructorfirst submits an electronic version of the essay to turnitin.com, which then searches the Internet and a large number of commercial databases. The program then presents a report of any documents found that appear similar to the paper.

Faculty members found the program effective, Wawrzaszek said, but some professors feel it compromises the student-teacher relationship.

"I feel [the program] sort of sets up an untrustworthy relationship between instructor and student," Ryan Wepler, a UWS instructor who participated in the pilot and served on Jaffe's committee, wrote in an e-mail to the Justice.

Turnitin.com was selected because it is the most "developed and most used" program of its kind, said David Wedaman, associate director for research and instruction.

"I think that turnitin.com is a convenient resource to detect plagiarism if an instructor has an essay that he or she thinks is plagiarized, but that it would likely not be used enough by instructors to warrant the immense cost of a universitywide subscription," Wepler wrote.

Wawrzasek said "just the thought" of plagiarism-detection software could deter students.