Ensuring Academic Integrity
Ethical & legal uses of copywrite laws and students
Ethical considerations
When first starting out as a student in higher learning, many generations come to mind. Not only have the youth of this generation but all of every age come to meet there. The traditional learner has been melded with the life-long learner more so than any other period in academia history.
Keeping this in mind not only do trends come and go so do the nurturing or removal of common sense thought patterns. What was once acceptable ethical practices of the past may now offend or limit the student of the 21st century. Global diversity is now a standard and ethical practices are garnered on one’s culture. What is one person’s ethical core standards may be taboo to another's.
To meet the challenges of today’s changing world one of the things to mind when writing and researching projects and papers is the importance of accurate citations. Each school has its own policy and procedures when it comes to plagiarism, copyright infringement, fair use, and privacy policies (for the student’s protections from others).
It is student’s ethical obligation to credit fully the originator of any collection or written works.
Legal responsibilities
Legal responsibilities are paramount when running an organization. This could make or break one if charges are file and if they are sued. It affects the school or organizations credibility and bottom line.
Teachers have responsibilities when using the facts provided to them as resources for learning. Also the utilization of the Fair use act can help when and how it is deemed appropriate use.
The end of this page there is an embedded link to the library of congress video on these obligations and where teachers and students can connect to safe ethical use of them. Making informed decisions is the trick and by using these public domains it can ease the path when searching for information.
The important part to remember is it being used for profit or non profit establishments and to keep practices to minimum usages as not to offend copyright laws. when in doubt follow the copywrite.gov link or the establishments HR department.
Library of Congress
U.S. Copyright Office
101 Independence Ave. S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20559-6000
(202) 707-3000 or 1-877-476-0778 (toll free)
Website: http://www.copyright.gov/