Participate 4.1.1 Digital Rights and Responsibilities Quest

Each individual has digital rights and along with those rights come responsibilities. Individuals have the right to credit for original work, yet have the responsibility to cite any idea or work belonging to another person. Individuals have the right to privacy and have the responsibility to keep their personal information personal without sharing passwords or login information.

In reviewing several AUPs I found I particularly like the Rules of the Road for students. I particularly like how this list of rules is written in first person. When a learner enters a course, they have agreed to follow the AUP or Digital Contract provided to them. The policy should outline both the user's rights and their responsibilities to the community.

Like a face-to-face class, plagiarism can be a problem in online courses. I recently had an online participant upload a project that was copied from an article. I sent the participant an email saying I thought they had uploaded the wrong project because I had just read the same thing on www.@#!$%$#%.com. The participant responded within a couple of minutes with the correct project...they had sent the wrong project. We should not be so quick to assume the worst.

The punishable perils of plagiarism - Melissa Huseman D’Annunzio ed.ted.com

Copyright law is sometimes so complicated that the average citizen might need a lawyer to figure out whether or not something can be used. http://copyright.gov/fair-use/. Thank goodness there is Fair Use! One can go to the U.S. Copyright Office Fair Use Index online and look up what the courts consider fair use. If a person is using part of a work noncommercially and cites their source correctly, the law considers this fair use. Stanford University Library says fair use is: "the right to use portions of copyrighted materials without permission for purposes of education, commentary, or parody. - See more at: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/academic-and-educational-permissions/non-coursepack/#sthash.OvLhsCyB.dpuf" A link to Copyright Laws for Teachers...
Creative Commons Copyright is useful for those wishing to share their work with other people. As long as the license conditions are adhered to, anyone can use CC-licensed works. Here is a link to how to provide attribution for CC-licensed works. Anyone can obtain a CC license for their own original work here. Creative Commons says "All CC licenses require you provide attribution and mark the material when you share it publicly."

Here is a link to my LiveBinder list of Digital Citizenship links.