just submitted my big proposal to TurnItIn
That’s right - we have to submit our proposals (which presumably get read by at least two profs) to make sure we’re not ripping anyone off! Despite the fact that as far as I can tell no one has ever been caught doing this ever.
TurnItIn’s privacy policy is sketchy as fuck; the link to the copyright policy in the Terms and Conditions returns a 404 (!), and then the actual privacy policy for Canada just rails against copyright law without actually stating whether I’ve just lost copyright over this proposal. I’ll take that as a sign that they own it, now. This is really not reassuring, seeing as there’s a nontrivial chance that this research could end up with something publishable, and I’d likely be using big chunks of math right out of the proposal.
If this ends up becoming an issue then I’ll be filing complaints with the Ombuds. Tempted to make a more formal complaint to the department in advance, but I want these people to be willing to hire me and supervise me and so forth and that’s not going to happen if I start rocking the boat. So, signing away my rights to my own research output to some company in California whose founder was friends with all the right profs.
Ugh I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed with my program. Not cool at all.
