Ethical Use of the Internet for Students and Teachers Plagiarism Evaluation of Websites Copyright and Fair Use Great Web Resources

Students Today More than 50% of high school students admit to downloading a paper or copying information from a website without proper citation. High school students are more blasé about cheating than college students. In 1988, 70% of Who’s Who students admitted to cheating. In 1998, 80% admitted to cheating.

Why? Students’ Attitudes The teacher is unfriendly, the subject boring, etc. Cheating is faster and easier. Everyone’s doing it! Apathy

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Why? Teachers’ Attitudes Too hard to catch. Low on priority list. Don’t have time.

Why? Ease of Cheating Everything is available and accessible at the fingertips. Students view teachers as not being tech savvy. Websites offer enticing ways to get out of work. The anonymous nature of the Internet makes plagiarism a faceless crime.

www.schoolsucks.com www.free-essays.com

Why? Lack of Understanding Students don’t know how to evaluate or cite sources. Confusion for both students and teachers as to what is and is not acceptable.

Why? Pressures to Achieve Family pressures Societal pressures Pressures to make the grade, get into the right college, etc.

So….What Can We Do About It? Prevention through Education Prevention through Detection http://lgos.org/files/Cut-and-Paste.jpg

Education Explain to students the ethical and legal issues. Create assignments that require higher order thinking. Be very clear as to what constitutes plagiarism and its consequences. Set a good example.

Teach students how to evaluate and cite sources. Discuss real and hypothetical gray areas. Teach students 4 main principles: ownership, right to privacy, social responsibility, and self-respect.

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Detection Establish and follow through with appropriate consequences. Think like a student: use keyword searches in various search engines. Plagiarism prevention software, websites, etc. Check reference lists. Look for odd layouts, spacing, fonts, or evidence on hyperlinks.

www.turnitin.com

Evaluation of Web Sites Students need to understand that all information on the web is not valid or reliable. www.wikipedia.com Even the founder of Wikipedia says not to use it for research. “The site is a wonderful starting point for research. But it’s only a starting point because there’s always a chance that there’s something wrong, and you should check your sources if you are writing a paper.” (Time Magazine, April 2, 2007, pg. 6)

www.theonion.com

www.zapatopi.net/treeoctopus www.geocities.com/petpu4

Copyright and Fair Use Copyright covers: literary works; musical works; dramatic works; pantomined and choreographed works; pictorial, graphics, and scupltural works; motion pictures and audiovisual works; and sound recordings. Copyright DOES NOT extend to facts and ideas.

When Copyrighted Materials Can Be Used Public domain With permission Legal exception Fair use

What exactly is Fair Use?!?

Fair Use for Educational Purposes Purpose of use Nature of the work Proportion/extent of material used The effect on marketability

Questions about Copyright or Fair Use? Center of Intellectual Property www.umuc.edu/distance/odell/cip/cip.shtml http://fairuse.stanford.edu http://chaucer.umuc.edu

Be a Role Model Be sure to model ethical behavior in your classroom by citing your sources and following copyright and fair use guidelines. Remember - students are watching! :-)

Great Web Resources!! Georgia Public Broadcasting www.gpb.org/education www.tienetwork.org http://streaming.discoveryeducation.com

Public Broadcasting System http://teachersdomain.org Webquests http://www.webquest.org/index.php Homemade PowerPoint Games http://it.coe.uga.edu/wwild/pptgames

Sources Hamilton, D. (2003). Plagiarism: Librarians help provide new solutions to an old problem. Searcher, 11(4), 26. Retrieved July 8, 2007, from ERIC database. Maclachlan, M. (1999). Plagiarism on the web is as easy as 1-2-3. Techweb network. Retrieved September 11, 2007, from http://www.techweb.com/wire/29109782. Minkel, W. (2002). Web of deceit. School library journal, 48(4), 50. Retrieved July 8, 2007, from ERIC database. Newsome, C. (1997). A teacher’s guide to fair use and copyright: Modeling honesty and resourcefulness. Retrieved September 27, 2007, from http://home.earthlink.net/~cnew/research Wales, J. (2007). Ten questions. Time. April 2, 2007, pg. 6.