Post 4 - Ownership, Academic Integrity and Digital Artefacts

Ownership, Academic Integrity and Digital Artefacts (Small, 2022).

 

Online activity 7 - 261764_2022_DBLE_DISD: Response (massey.ac.nz)

This activity got us to look deeper into plagiarism and digital artefacts - more specifically, we were to respond to the statement made by Gajadhar (1998) in Marshall and Garry (2005).

"Gajadhar (1998) has described students as regarding web materials as free for anyone to use and it appears that the convenience of copying and reusing digital materials and this attitude have combined to normalize and legitimate plagiarism from the web in students minds (Baruchson-Arbib & Yaari, 2004)."

This statement resonated for two reasons: first, in a previous role in the same organisation I was responsible for training the next generation of instructors in instructional skills and presentation techniques within my organisation. Often the presentations these trainees created would be loaded with content taken straight from Google, YouTube, or similar. Secondly, it occurred to me that in this course I was also creating reflections using images from Google or similar sites which directly went against what I was learning about plagiarism. This resulted in the fine Canva creations you (the esteemed reader) see at the header of each reflection, created by myself using tools provided within the license agreed to on Canva.

While this adaptation of the learning to my own practice might seem at first insignificant, however it also created a wider change within my educational context. The accessibility of online learning creation tools, and ease of creation with tools such as Articulate, has led many down the path of plagiarism of content within my organisation. This is something I have since begun to check and take part in conversations to upskill those wishing to utilize online content in their learning packages. When asked about copyright, many learners asked would refer to the referencing information used in their presentations and training packages - but did not consider that content such as google search images or videos would require the same level of referencing and copyright consideration. As mentioned in Morrison (2018), copyright implications arise whenever we interact with content; whether it be creating, using or sharing it. In the digital landscape this becomes a critical component of digital literacy for teachers, educators, and students alike. While all examples of content sharing and re-purposing as used here are innocent in nature, Wishart (2018) provided an apt reminder that content sharing has also been utilized for malicious purposes such as cyberbullying, acts out of jealousy, and invasion of privacy. In a digital learning environment, these are some of the considerations that learners and educators alike are contending with when utilizing technology for learning.

Lamlert (2014) takes a different stance towards the copyrighting and prohibition of sharing and utilizing online material, whereby the restriction of use of these materials is deemed unreasonable. The rapid changes in the digital technologies landscape have also seen a growing demand for easily accessible and free images and videos, particularly in schools, as learners become engaged in consumption and creation of material for learning purposes. One of the many benefits of the rapid technology change and its application to education is the ability for information and content to be created, shared, and built upon more easily than before. In addition, the concept of connectivism, initially coined by George Siemens, is built upon this notion of consuming and building upon content in an information-sharing digital environment (Siemens, 2004). By restricting the use of digital content this does have some implications on ease of use within the learning environment, despite there being some value in the identified need to enhance the digital literacy of our learners to cover copyright and plagiarism implications.

References

Baruchson-Arbib, S., & Yaari, E. (2004). Printed versus internet plagiarism: A study of students' perception. International Journal of Information Ethics, 1, 1-7. 

Gajadhar, J. (1998). Issues in plagiarism for the new millennium: An assessment odyssey. Retrieved July 19, 2005, from http://ultibase.rmit.edu.au/Articles/dec98/gajad1.htm

Lamlert, W. (2014). Copyright and creative commons license: Can educators gain benefits in the digital age? International conference e-learning 2014. Multi conference on Computer Science and Information Systems (pp. 277–282). International Association for Development of the Information Society.

Marshall, S., & Garry, M. (2005). How well do students really understand plagiarism?  www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/brisbane05/blogs/proceedings/52_Marshall.pdf

Morrison, C. (2018). Copyright and digital literacy: Rules, risk and creativity. J. Parker & K. Reedy (Eds.), Digital literacy unpacked (pp. 97–108). Facet.

Siemens, G. (2004). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. elearnspace.org, 1-7.

Small, L. (2022). Ownership, Academic Integrity and Digital Artefacts. [digital visualization on the internet]. https://www.canva.com/design/DAFIWIaZ6AI/iXMYkv_6heFJnfAI2UaI4A/edit?utm_content=DAFIWIaZ6AI&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

Wishart, J. (2018). Ethical considerations in the incorporation of mobile and ubiquitous technologies into teaching and learning in educational contexts. S. Yu, M. Ally, & A. Tsinakos (Eds.), Mobile and ubiquitous learning: An international handbook (pp. 81–93). Springer.