The observance of laws related to intellectual property is as important for us historians as it is for the students whom we caution against plagiarism.
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When a student commits
an act of plagiarism, for instance, he or she is ultimately taking credit
for the work of someone else without acknowledging that person's influence
or labor. We say this is academically dishonest because the student is
taking credit for the advancement of ideas that did not initiate with him or
her. We could also strengthen our argument in Pauline terms, which me
might paraphrase as "we
are present through our letters when absent." If our writing is an extension
of ourselves, of our identities, then someone else's uncited use of our work
is a form of identity theft, of using the extensions of us as extensions of
him- or herself. This point carries over in our professional use of online resources. As educators, Dr. Kalantzis tells us, we can often find that our arguments can be strengthened with visuals and that, in fact, these visuals can actually become center-pieces of reflection within class lectures. We cannot demonstrate how to read a picture, naturally, without the picture. The hermeneutical process called ekphrasis, which is the verbalization of the visual, cannot occur as a learning tool without the object undergoing deconstruction. We have two premises, then, that we have to reconcile around this point -- (1) we must use external resources in our teaching, and (2) the external resources we are most likely to use are extensions of someone else. Put in those terms, then, we can only come to one honest conclusion about our own use of resources that others have created -- we must ask permission and cite them. |
©opyright.com | |
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Our Parameters Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act of 2002 TEACH and PowerPoint |
One of the things that our study of intellectual property law can do for us is help us build relationships with artists of various creative media. We not only have the potential to illustrate our PowerPoint presentations or our websites with photographic visuals, but we also have the opportunity to include videographic visuals (like my use of Microsoft Producer to sync my lectures with PowerPoint or any History Channel documentary) and audiographic visuals (like Fr. Witt's synching of his audios with a visual concordance). Dr. Kalantzis has addressed the question of how to integrate external resources into our work; it is up to us to ensure that we are doing it legally and, especially, ethically. (Back)