Plagiarism on the Internet

As you all know, the Internet is the greatest education tool there is. Unfortunately, the Internet allows people to plagiarise others' work at a much greater scale than other mediums. In fact, there are sites on the Internet that encourage people to use other people's work such as The Evil House of Cheat. The site owners realise it's "evil" but nevertheless provide this service just to make money, no matter how immoral it may be. However, to gain access, the student (the site is aimed at high school/college students) must have a real credit card which most would not have access to.

There are several other web sites similar to this one that contain other people's essays. It would be a good idea to block access to these sites within the school network, but this will not stop students accessing this material from home. It can be a difficult task for teachers to spot plagiarism and it often goes unnoticed.

Contrary to the popular belief, the Internet is not a free source for information where you can copy anything you like. Unlike patents or trademarks, you do not have to register to copyright a text, image etc. People have the impression that if the site does not say the material is copyrighted, then they can take it. This is certainly not the case. Copyright subsists in material on the Internet just as it does in other physical and virtual means (books, newspapers, audio, video, cd-rom etc.). The same applies to e-mail messages you receive from others. Copyright owners, like owners of any physical property, have the right to decide what is to be done with their material. It is imperative to ask permission from the owner if you wish to use or pass on his/hers material. Altering work is still copyright infringement.

I would like to invite educators, students or just passers-by to share you ideas or beliefs on this topic. Please participate in the discussion at the bottom of this page.

A new contest will start next month and if you have any ideas for this, please e-mail me.

Also, regarding the article I published two months ago on HighWired.Net, if your school is interested in this great free service, when signing up please be sure to put "K12Schools.Com" in the field provided for where you heard about them from...

'til next month :-)

- GE

Go To Page: 1

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic