Definitions / other terms used: (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (Eleventh Edition), Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, and Merriam-Webster's Student Dictionary (Third Edition), are all copyrighted 2004 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. http://search.eb.com/dictionary ) (Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2nd ed, 1989- ; http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl )
Access: the state of being available or approachable
Censorship: to control access to writings, artistic works, news, etc on the basis of morals or perceived danger.
Computer ethics: the moral use of computers and their applications which affect more and more aspects as our lives in increasingly invasive ways including community life; family life; personal life (including medical records); finances; human relationships, education, social, etc.
Copying: making a transcription or duplication in any format
Copyright: the right, given by law for a certain term of years, to an author, creator, designer, etc (or his assignee) to publish and other wise distribute and /sell his/her original work. This includes literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and other intellectual works. http://www.copyright.gov/
Ethics: the field of moral science, the basis of law, and the principles of conduct governing an individual or a group.
Fair use: A special provision of the copyright code to allow the use of information sources in the educational process. Fair use does require attribution of ideas, information, etc to the creator and does not include republication of materials
Intellectual freedom: the right to have access to any type of work and to publish creative works.
Misinformation/ bad information: wrong or misleading information.
Paraphrasing: a restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form.
Patents: are similar to copyright in that they guarantee rights to the holder of the patent for a term of years. Patents are assigned to inventions, or ideas for inventions, that are verified as being original and exclude others from using the idea to make the invention.
Plagiarism: the presentation of another's ideas, expressions, or creative work whether literary, musical, artistic, mechanical, etc. as your own.
Privacy of personal information: private information is confidential and should not be revealed .
Selection bias: a tendency to select or not select any type of work on the basis of a prejudice or predilection.
How to avoid unethical behavior in your research:
Do not fall into cut and paste composition: Read your background and source materials, write your paper, cite your sources.
Be scrupulous in your research practices. Keep track of complete citations as you collect information. Keep all of your sources together as you work on your project. If in doubt go back to the sources to verify.
Do not treat paraphrasing or restatement of another's ideas as original writing.
Facts (e.g. 2+2=4) are not copyrighted. The creative presentation or organization of facts is copyrightable.
Links:
Grinnell College Copyright Policy (pdf document - requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
http://www.lib.grinnell.edu/research/copyright.pdf
US Copyright Office
Information Ethics Tutorial from the Department of the Navy
http://www.doncio.navy.mil/iltoolkit/Tutorial_InformationEthics.htm
Copyright Clearance Center
International Center for Information Ethics
US Patent and Trademark Office
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/whatis.htm
Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Copyright Resource Page
http://www.arl.org/pp/ppcopyright/
The Conference on Fair Use (CONFU)
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/confu.htm
Copyright, Intellectual Property Rights and Licensing Issues / from Berkeley's Digital Library SunSITE (Contains a list of copyright organizations, articles, papers and more)
http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Copyright/
The Copyright Website (Contains practical and relevant copyright information for the novice user including copyright registration)
University of Texas System Crash Course on Copyright
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/cprtindx.htm
Stanford University Libraries: Copyright and Fair Use
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF is a nonprofit group of passionate people; lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries; working to protect your digital rights.)
Copyright & Art Issues / compiled by Christine L. Sundt
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~csundt/copyweb/
A Guide to Copyright for Music Librarians
http://www.lib.jmu.edu/org/mla/
LIBLICENSE , Licensing Digital Information WWW resource / sponsored by the Yale University Library, the Commission on Preservation and Access, and the Council on Library Resources (Iintended to provide information and assistance for academic and research libraries as they read and negotiate licenses with information providers for electronic information content in a variety of formats, CD and online)
http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/index.shtml
The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) (pdf file- requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf
DMCA: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (A summary of the impacts on libraries from the American Library Association web site)
http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/copyrightb/dmca/dmcadigitalmillenium.htm
The TEACH Act : Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (pdf file - requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_bills&docid=f:s487es.txt.pdf
WATCH: Writers and Their Copyright Holders / new version (Contains primarily the names and addresses of copyright holders or contact persons for English-language authors whose papers are housed, in whole or in part, in libraries and archives in North America and the United Kingdom)
http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/news/press/2004/watch.html
When Works Pass Into the Public Domain (A useful chart to determine if material is in the public domain or still under copyright)
http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm
Copyright Terms and the Public Domain in the United States (Cornell Institute for Digital Collections)
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/training/Hirtle_Public_Domain.htm
The Intellectual Property and Technology Forum at Boston College Law School (includes news, scholarly articles, and commentary)
http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/law/st_org/iptf/
Return to Doing Research
