Plagiarism and the Cyber Citizen

Bland, J. (2010) "Ethics"

Many moons ago, I decided to do a report in my high school government class on the ethics of photo journalism. This was when I still had romantic aspirations of roaming the globe with thousands of dollars of Nikon around my neck and in my rucksack, chasing the most exciting stories that came out of the four corners of the earth - so let's say I had a vested interest. The written part of the report was solid, with a good deal of research, but it was missing something. Of course - examples of photo journalism.

I spent hours sifting through books containing Pulitzer Prize winning photos, and then taking them to the AV room where I spent more hours using the photo copier - which in this case was not a Xerox machine but a stand that held a SLR camera and two lights for shadow-free imagery. I placed the photo on the stand, checked the camera frame, adjusted, checked again, adjusted again ... I was thoroughly into the activity. I snapped about fifteen pictures, then spent more hours in the dark room developing the film and printing the pictures. When the photos were dry, I took them home where I spent even more hours mounting them carefully with those little photo corner holders (aptly named) and re-typing the paper so that the text wrapped around the photos.

(Note that I never mention the terms "computer," "word processor," or "scanning" because this was 1982, which is damn near the dark ages if you ask a sixteen year old today. At least we didn't have to make our own paper.)

Trask, H. (1957) "The Sinking of the Andrea Doria"

I proudly handed it in, a few classmates casting an envious look at my handiwork. If ever there was a slam-dunk A+ paper, this was it. And when you're a sophomore in high school, when you think you're hot, the fall is just that much harder. When we received the papers back, I didn't get an A+. I got a B+, and I was stunned. The research was all in line, the writing was strong, but there was one peculiar note on the paper from my instructor: "These images are copyrighted, aren't they?" Now there were many times in high school where irony was lost on me - as it was and still is for most high school males - but this one didn't miss:

I had committed a breach of ethics on a paper about the ethics of photo journalism.

I felt like a complete dolt. Nowhere in my paper did the word "copyright" exist. It should have, and not just because I boosted about fifty years of award winning photography. Many photojournalists have come under scrutiny for the way they have manipulated photos, and it happens today with more frequency. The age of digital media makes this issue easier to abuse.

How do we teach students the ethics of using other's creative works? Thankfully, we have entities such as Common Sense Media, Power to Learn, and The Copyright Alliance to provide thoughtful tools and instruction to help teachers, students and parents. Creating learning opportunities for the school community is an important way to head off problems that are more plentiful with the advent of sharing digital media.

Go here to view the professional development plan. This is designed for early school year pre-service or half-day inservice
Go here to view the classroom unit designed for 11th and 12th grade Language Arts Students. This is designed to be part of the unit over citing sources and plagiarism.
Go here to view the parent/guardian presentation. This is designed to be presented as part of all of a regularly scheduled PTA meeting

Go here to see a brief presentation that introduces the concepts of copyright and fair use.

Including teachers, students and parents in the discussion regarding ethical use of intellectual property reduces the chances of issues becoming problems, and it significantly broadens the learning base.

There are other issues regarding cyber life, such as Cyber Bullying, Online Integrity, Security, and Privacy. None of these issues are more or less important than the other. If a student is online, then they all are at work at some level.

What do you think are important cyber citizen issues? How do you address them as a teacher? A parent? A student? Leave a comment and let's start a discussion!