Northwestern faculty might lose a strong weapon against plagiarism if interest in the $6,500-a-year Turnitin.com service doesn’t increase, university administrators say.

Most professors have been using the Web search engine Google to check up on suspicious passages in student papers. But with TurnItIn.com, professors can simply upload papers into the system. The site returns a report of any sections that might have been plagiarized.

“Not only does it do what Google does, it does it 1,000 times faster, and not only (with) sites on the Internet but also a database the size of the Library of Congress,” said Dan Garrison, chairman of the undergraduate conduct committee.

But few professors are using the service.

“When we signed up last year, we sent out e-mails encouraging faculty to become registered users. But there hasn’t been thousands of papers going through, not even hundreds,” said Stephen Fisher, associate provost for undergraduate education. “At the most, there’s been a few dozen.”

Fisher said only a couple of dozen faculty have signed up, even though the service costs the professors nothing and those interested simply have to contact him to get an access code and an explanation of how to use it.

Turnitin.com is more efficient and effective than keeping an eye out for suspicious phrases while grading. The service also scans online paper mills — sites where students can purchase pre-written papers — and other papers that have been run through the Turnitin.com system, Garrison said.

But faculty might be more comfortable with their own methods, such as using Google, having students turn in drafts during the writing process or simply relying on their own abilities to spot plagiarized material, Fisher said.

As a result, when NU’s contract with Turnitin.com ends this spring, administrators might not renew the service.

NU began using the service after a number of students plagiarized final papers last spring. Philosophy Prof. Axel Mueller said he caught 12 students who had lifted a page or more from other sources without citation in their final papers.

But even Mueller said he hasn’t become a regular user of the service.

“I would certainly use it in cases when I’m sure there’s something in the bush but I’m not sure what it is,” he said, adding he prefers to rely on his own abilities to spot lifted material.

Mueller said using TurnItIn.com might prolong the grading process if it takes a few days to check through the papers of larger classes. The company, however, reports almost instantaneous turnaround time, Fisher said.

Although nobody can put a number on how many NU students plagiarize, faculty and administrators have a feeling it’s a growing problem that needs more tools and attention.

Trying to estimate the plagiarism problem by the amount of students caught is “like estimating the deer population by the number of roadkill,” Garrison said.

“All we have are essentially markers which suggest the size of the problem,” Garrison said.

Students who are caught plagiarizing are turned in to the undergraduate dean, along with evidence of plagiarism. If the dean decides the evidence is good, the student is interviewed and punished, Mueller said. The sanctions can range from a letter of reprimand to dismissal from the university.

Craig Bina, a Weinberg associate dean overseeing undergraduate studies, wrote in an e-mail Wednesday that he has seen little use of Turnitin.com in plagiarism cases referred to his office.

“This could mean that it is not widely used, or it could mean that, where it is used, it has reduced the incidence of plagiarism,” Bina wrote.

But other preventative measures also could be effective, said Howard Lien, a Weinberg senior who is taking a class that uses the TurnItIn.com program.

“It’s sad that things have come to this, that there’s such a low level of trust,” Lien said. “I think an honor code would help.”

Lien said his friends at universities with honor codes stay honest because they enjoy the privileges that come with trust, such as scheduling exams whenever they want.

“People don’t even think of cheating,” he said. “It’s something nobody wants to mess up.”

But Garrison said honor codes and education are not enough — methods for catching cheaters are important to discourage the practice.

“You can play on people’s sense of ethics, but it’s like playing on people’s ethics with a speed limit when there’s no one to enforce it,” he said. “Everyone will speed anyway.”