Well, That's Original

When most of my students think about plagiarism, they are afraid.

They are afraid of harsh consequences, marred permanent records, and potential expulsions.

This bothers me.

A lot.

Students are not introduced to the concept of academic integrity; they are introduced to the violation of that integrity. And often the introduction has a "guilty-until-proven-innocent" vibe.

I work hard to show why that fear is unproductive.

There is a reason universities treat intellectual property the way they do. It is a value the community holds, and not every community feels the same way. Students should know that when we enforce rules about academic integrity, we are not teaching a universally held belief. We are teaching the values of the institution.

I ask my students to explore this and write an informative essay for incoming freshmen that explains why higher education places such an emphasis on crediting our sources.

I'm looking forward to adding this set of posts from Imgur to the readings.
In it, one user animated another user's comic about how the community on Imgur.com treats original content.