MPow2.7183r : On publication, plagiarism, fair usage, copyright and refereeing matters

Rule of thumb: cite what you read and read what you cite (unless, in the case of the latter, it happens that you need to cite some seminal work which was published in a foreign language).

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Plagiarism is a serious problem facing the university accreditation process. Fair usage demands that all reference sources be cited. University procedures incorporate electronic plagiarism checks. Project students are expected to deliver reports to verify that content has not been plagiarised.

For my own part, I declare and clarify that:

I am the sole author of my PhD thesis and that my peer-reviewed publications and working papers are fully refereed works with novel contributions. My specific contributions in teamwork components of related publications have been documented.

I communicate existing knowledge and research developments as a teacher. To this end I use, iterate on and develop from scratch, course outlines and course material based on pre-existing course notes, reputed textbooks, peer-reviewed publications and topical discussion pieces in the news media. I endeavour to cite all my sources in notes and slides.

Research presentations contain original material and/or formal literature review (with full citations) as focus. For some slide presentations, I have sourced illustrative images and cartoons from the web - I have generally (but not always consistently) included URL /source references for the latter.

A list of diane's publications and other research outputs are posted on http://www.dianewilcox.net/publications.htm . Yes, this blogger refers to herself in the 3rd person or as the author as well. It's a style which I picked up somewhere from academic literature (literature reviews, journal articles, theses and monographs). I also blog on FB, where I typically use quotation marks to indicate comments made by other authors.

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2012 Wiki link on FAIR USE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use: Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work. In United States copyright law, fair use is a doctrine that permits limited use of copyrighted material without acquiring permission from the rights holders. Examples of fair use include commentary, search engines, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching, library archiving and scholarship. It provides for the legal, unlicensed citation or incorporation of copyrighted material in another author's work under a four-factor balancing test.

A 2005 Fair disclaimer which may be relevant if some source is reproduced for some open academic discussion: "FAIR USE NOTICE This page contains links to copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. The material is being made available for the advancement of understanding of political, human rights, economic, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. The use of such material for nonprofit educational purposes constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material (which, for the instances of items from US based sources, happens to be provided for in the US Copyright Law at Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml). "

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