Something I have become more interested in lately is the use of images by students for their web pages, blogs and presentations and the set of skills and thoughts that they have on the use images and artwork for their needs.
As I work with more and more students and see the digital work they create either through projects or their homepages I have seen how little many know about the use of others’ images for their own work. Many students will happily discuss the need to ‘write in their own words’ information that they gather, but often you will see photos or images taken from a range of sources with no thought of taking them and no reference to the creator.
I decided to look into the term plagiarism and I found it interesting to note that many of the definitions of plagiarism related solely or heavily towards text with no or little reference to images, artwork, music or movies.
Plagiarism is defined as:
The false presentation of someone else’s writing as one’s own. In the case of copyrighted work, plagiarism is illegal.
www.sedgeband.com/glossary.html
The act of appropriating the literary composition of another author, or excerpts, ideas, or passages therefrom, and passing the material off as one’s own creation.
ucblibraries.colorado.edu/about/glossary.htm
Courtesy of a google define search on plagiarism.
I then went off to Mirriam-Webster Dictionary:
Plagiarizing
transitive verb : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one’s own : use (another’s production) without crediting the source
intransitive verb : to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
Still heavily text based by with a reference to the use of ‘another’s production’.
Where is the focus on the unauthorised use of images, artwork or other creative forms as a form of plagiarism?
As I have learnt more about Creative Commons I see more of a need for our students to be taught sourcing of their images and their ability to create their own images or identify images labelled as cc images that they are able to use. (For more about cc or creative commons check out this
video.)
Referencing or Sourcing: to place the url or web address of the site that the image was taken from. This allows ownership to be sourced back to the correct person. If the photo is taken from a site as flickr a link to their name or photo would be shown.
An example of students sourcing an image would look like this:
or
image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/vtveen/491434236/
By not teaching this skill it seems like I am teaching two sets of literacies to my students in regards to their use of information gathering on the internet or from other sources. Am I teaching them to down playing the importance of peoples photography, images, artwork or other forms through not teaching these skills.
This is something that I am working towards with my students, for them to be more aware of what and who’s work they are taking. I would like to know what you are doing in regards to the use of your students taking images or artworks? Do you have a set of school wide policies or ideas in regards to this?
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