Monday, November 13, 2000
Plagiarism-testing sites evaluated
Turnitin.com, a Web site that claims to electronically detect plagiarized material, proved to be an ineffective way for the University of Southern California Office of Student Conduct to discover academic dishonesty.
USC officials tested out turnitin.com and similar sites by submitting samples of work they had intentionally plagiarized. Although turnitin.com, formerly known as plagiarism.org, successfully detected plagiarized portions that were blatantly cut-and-pasted into the writings, they could not detect more discreet plagiarism.

U. of Pennsylvania settles lawsuit
The University of Pennsylvania has settled a lawsuit brought by the family of an Arizona teenager who died after participating in a gene-therapy experiment at the university. Jesse Gelsinger died last year, at the age of 18, after receiving a gene-therapy treatment for liver disease. The lawsuit charged that doctors failed to inform the Gelsingers of the dangers of the experiment in advance--in particular, that several of the other 17 participants in the experimental treatment had suffered serious side effects, that several of the monkeys infected with the virus had died or become seriously ill, and that the treatment was potentially toxic. The amount of the settlement has not been released.

--Sharon Coar
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