Wednesday, April 08, 2009

E-tivity 6

Respecting IPR and Avoiding Plagiarism

Even before the Web made it possible to easily distribute contents all over the world, laws were developed to respect the rights of people who invent new tools and machines and who create artistic works. These laws can be brought together under the term 'Intellectual Property Rights' (IPR). Not respecting IPR can lead to legal actions.

In academic spheres, similarly, there are un-writtren codes of honor that oblige students and scholars to attribute words, ideas and opinions that are not their own to the original source. Not doing so is called plagiarism. Although not the case in Italy, in many other countries plagiarism can lead to failing a course or being expelled from a University.

Purpose: To understand what we can do to respect IPR and avoid plagiarism.

Task: (N.B. It may look like a lot, but you've got more than two weeks to do it ;-)

1 – On your blogs: What can you do to respect IPR and avoid plagiarism on your blogs? In groups, come up with a list. Search for any websites that discuss the issue and save them in delicious. Make a blog post about what you have learned or feel you still need to better understand.

2 – For your research: If you have not already done so, find an academic article on the Web that you can use for your thesis (see Task in Handout 1).

3 - Complete the Task on the last page of Handout 2.

4 - Start learning about different referencing styles. Explore these two sites that explain the APA and MLA styles that are most commonly used internationally. Based on the research article you found, do the following in both styles:

  • paraphrase a part of the article + in-text citation;
  • summarize a part of the article + in-text citation;
  • choose a direct quotation from the article + in-text citation;
  • write the bibliographic reference that comes at the end of a paper.
Bring your article to class on Thursday, April 30 and we will look at them together. (This is what students have to do in America so now you know how we suffer!)

5 - Write a reflective blogging post on how these two styles differ and how they differ from what you used for your BA thesis. Also comment on any difficulties you encountered.

Respond: Read the other the posts of the members of your group. Write a comment agreeing/disagreeing/reflecting on what your peers have said. Provide linguistic feedback if and when necessary (see Francesca's linguistic feedback to her peers in the .pdf file with corrections from E-tivity 5 - it provides some good examples).

Timeline: Wednesday, April 22 (task - should be 3 blog posts in all, points 1, 3 and 5 above), Wednesday, April 29 (respond to one of all of the 3 posts - your choice!).




4 comments:

Arianna said...

Urgent, to Sarah Guth!
Dear Sarah, I'm Arianna Crema, I'm writing because I noticed something strange in my firstclass authentication procedure.
When I logged in I had one username and one password usually, but I 've tried right now to log in and sth is changed: usually it appears one username only, the one I chose and used only. Now, there are two usernames, the one I know and another unknown to me, which is "efrereporter". That sounds strange to me because I've never used it before, but it's there actually! I thought the technicians were working at the software, but why should they use my login? Maybe, it's just my impression, or you really managed to make us more sensitive to data control on the Web ;-). What would you suggest I can do now?
Thank you for your attention.
Ciao Arianna

Giorgia said...

Hi Sarah,
Are you doing?

I just want to ask you something about handouts...
How do I make a link to a .pdf file? I mean, I tried to save your handouts in my Google Docs, but I couldn't manage to make a clickable link in my blog that take me directly to the .pdf files... :( sob...

Thanx
Bye
Giorgia

Sarah said...

@Arianna - I contacted the technician - has he written to you?

@Giorgia - I'm not sure how it works with Google Docs because Google Docs is a closed system you have to log in to. I imagine this means you can't make a direct link because only you can access your Google Docs. I upload them to the wiki, put a link to them on the wiki page, save the page and then putting my mouse over the link on the saved page I do 'copia indirizzo' and that becomes the url I use for the link in the blog. You've still got your wiki page available to you (your learner diary) so you could do the same ;-) Let me know.

Sarah

Giorgia said...

Thank you Sarah...I did it! :)

Thanx
Giorgia