Copyright, Plagiarism, and Fair Use

Disclaimer: Information herein is not legal advice, but simply a librarian’s view of the issues with suggestions.

Plagiarism: We all know what it is when we see it, but preventing it isn’t easy.

Copyright: Legal restrictions on the use of others’ work in any format for any purpose.

Fair Use: An “exception” to otherwise illegal use of material under copyright protection

Articles and Websites:

Copy Wrongs: Teachers Looking for Online Materials, Be Warned

http://www.edutopia.org/copyright-rules-teachers

U.S. Copyright Office http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

Stanford Copyright & Fair Use Center http://fairuse.stanford.edu/

Copyright for Teachers and School Librarians (updated June 2007)

http://users.mhc.edu/facultystaff/awalter/Brim site/index.html

Plagiarism

Unless we teach them how not to plagiarize, they will!

Strategies for prevention of plagiarism:

1) Teach them:

to paraphrase correctly

to take notes effectively

to use direct quotations appropriately

2) Provide adequate copyright-free images:

Cambridge Freely Available Images

http://www.caret.cam.ac.uk/copyright/Page75.html

Kidsclick Image Search tools

http://www.kidsclick.org/psearch.html

3) Teach and evaluate the research process itself

Require students to turn in notes, outlines, graphic organizers, etc.

Require bibliographic citations or Sources Used lists

4) Let them know you check their work, and can catch copy and paste text.

5) Define and make known the consequences of plagiarism in your classroom.

Diana Spaulding, RVSD Information Literacy, May 2008