Last Blogger

A few interesting tidbits on this system as of late. Some of Mike Smit’s work has been included in a rather well put together piece on the issues regarding turnitin.com.

Earlier this semester, UCIS released their Fall 2006 version of the Digital Times. Of note in this issue was an article titled “Avoid Google Desktop”. I encourage you to read the article for yourself as it is well written and very informative. The jist of it though is that Google Desktop sends information over the border to the US. Since there’s no control over what information it sends, it’s a huge liability towards sending student information over the border if, for example, a professor had it installed on their machine. After reading the article, I sent an e-mail asking both Greg Pemberton and John Bullok (the authors of the article) as to whether or not turnitin.com sent any information over the border to the US.

At the time of writing, there were no provincial laws preventing this though there was some proposed legislation. BC has already amended FOIPOP legslation to prevent this and the concern from UCIS is that it’s just a matter of time before we are encapsulated by similar legislation and that we should be pro-active to make sure our house is in order before such legislation would come to pass.

I’ve yet to receive a reponse to my question from either of the authors, though I should note that I don’t believe either one has anything to do with turnitin.com so they may simply not know. But I’m heading towards a couple of months with no reply at all. I would ask though, why the author e-mail adresses if there’s general disinterest in answering questions.