Some students at Montreal's McGill University say they are being branded as cheaters, until they prove themselves innocent. A California Web site specializing in vetting academic work for plagiarism is at the heart of the controversy.

Turnitin.com is a private company in the business of catching cheaters. A new pilot project at McGill requires students to submit their work to the Web site, which checks for plagiarism before electronically forwarding it to professors.

"A lot of students were a little bit shocked to know that they had to submit their papers to turnitin.com, without really being consulted beforehand," McGill student Elise Legault told CTV News.

Every assignment has to be approved by turnitin.com under the project, and students say that's unfair.

"That's a big problem, that's one of the main problems, to be presumed guilty and to have to prove that you do not plagiarize," Legault said.

McGill's student association wants the university administration to back off.

"There was a survey done on the use of turnitin.com and what they found out from students was, 'How dare you?'" said Vivian Choy.

The administration maintains students who play by the academic rules have nothing to fear.

"I don't think that honest students have anything to be concerned about," said Morton Mendelson, chairman of McGill's academic integrity committee.

Plagiarism is a growing problem on Canadian university campuses, and the Internet makes it easier than ever to cheat.

But, turnitin.com allows professors to use the Internet to fight the Internet.

The company says its service is used by nearly 6 million students and teachers in over 51 universities worldwide.

The University of Toronto, the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria are among the Canadian institutions that reportedly employ turnitin.com as a curb on cheating.

"The idea is that every student should be confident that all other students in the class are playing on the same level playing field," Mendelson said.

The Web site turns textbooks, journals, and term papers into mathematical code, which is then stored in a database also including millions of other published works and a copy of the publicly accessible Internet.

Student papers are compared with the database and an "originality report" is generated which highlights any copied or paraphrased text.

Once submitted, student papers stay preserved on the Web site to make sure they aren't used again.

"So your work is out on the Internet, and that's a big worry I think," Legault said.

Mendelson says the company doesn't gain rights to the original work or students, it just keeps it for future reference.

"Turnitin.com isn't claiming the copyright of the paper, the student who has written the paper still owns the paper," Mendelson said.

But, Choy says there are better solutions to the problem of academic integrity than the controversial Web site.

"For example honour codes, social contracts, educating rather that catching students should be the focus of what the university is all about," Choy said.

With a report from CTV's Todd van der Heyden