Riolo: A mutual colleague, Sheila Peck also interviewed for this series (See An Editor's Viewpoint On Copyright Infringements) when asked about the frequency of seeing news and journal articles copied to internet discussion groups with no indication that permission was asked or granted said, “I don't imagine that social workers or other mental health professionals see themselves as "above the law." Most of us probably don't think about it and may not even be aware of "intellectual property." A colleague with whom I had occasion to use the phrase asked me what I meant.” Do you have any thoughts on Ms Peck’s comment?
Grobman: I agree with Sheila’s comment. I don’t think most social workers would purposely violate copyright law, but many aren’t aware of it. I have seen social workers, and even Ph.D. level social work educators, copy entire newspaper articles and send them to electronic mailing lists of several hundred people. They genuinely see something of value in the article and want to share it with colleagues. They probably are not educated in the fact that copying something like that in its entirety is a copyright violation. There seems to be a widely held misconception that if something is published online, it is free to copy and do with as one pleases.
Riolo: How have you successfully dealt with this issue where other discussion groups seem to be either struggling or simply do not concern themselves with this practice?
Grobman: Not everyone is unaware of the need to ask for permission. I get quite a few requests for permission to reprint (or redistribute) articles from THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER or from our electronic journal, the JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WORK VALUES AND ETHICS. If the circumstances are appropriate, I’m happy to grant permission, provided that the original source is cited.
On THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER’s online discussion forum, we have a policy that states, “Posts may not contain copyrighted material or other material for which the poster does not have legal rights--instead, direct others to the original source.” Most participants on our forum follow this policy, but occasionally someone will post some copyrighted material. In that case, I remove the material and try to find a link to the original source, or ask the poster to provide a link or citation. This means I have to keep an eye on each post, but I have made this a priority, because it is so important. (And I have to keep an eye on posts for other reasons, too, such as violations of confidentiality and other issues that are covered in our posting policy.)1
Riolo: Have you found that social workers using your websites do or do not understand the concepts involved? That is both in terms of your discussion group(s) and in the submission of articles to your website.
Grobman: For the most part, I have not seen a lot of problems with copyright violation or plagiarism. However, occasionally someone will submit an article who clearly does not understand the difference between proper citation, in which information from other sources is synthesized, and plagiarism. The most blatant example was an article that was submitted to THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER in which the author (a social worker) had copied and pasted entire passages from Internet sources, and had not even put them in quotation marks, but had listed the references at the end of the article. He thought that because the sources had been listed, this was an acceptable way of “writing” an article.
Riolo: In your experience, do you think grad school education adequately covers issue of copyright infringements beyond the warning not to plagiarize another author work?
Grobman: I can’t say whether this is adequately covered across the board or not. I’m sure it is addressed more thoroughly in some schools than others. In the previous example, the social worker clearly had not learned in school the difference between citing (and quoting) correctly and plagiarism, whether intentional or not.
Riolo: Given that we are in the age of the internet and e-publishing what should graduate schools be teaching graduate students about publishing?
Grobman: Oh, there are many things I could say about this. First, in terms of using the Internet as a resource, students need to know basic criteria for evaluating Web sites and other sources. They need to ask questions such as: Is it reliable? Is it accurate? Is it unbiased? Is it current?
Students need to be encouraged not to forget about other more traditional sources. Because it is so easy to find so much information on the Internet, students may be tempted to use Internet research exclusively.
Graduate schools need to provide students with clear direction on how to cite and quote Internet sources, and to provide students with information on what constitutes copyright infringement. If a student plagiarizes in a graduate school assignment, this needs to be taken seriously and appropriate action needs to be taken by the school.
Students need to be aware of the legal and ethical issues as they relate to copyright infringement. The NASW Code of Ethics, for example, spells out standards relating to dishonesty, fraud, and deception (Standard 4.04) and for acknowledging credit (Standard 4.08). So, assuming that students are being taught the Code of Ethics, they should have at minimum a beginning understanding of these issues .2
I have heard that many schools use online services to evaluate student papers for plagiarism. For example, TurnItIn.com provides a service that helps professors identify plagiarism in student papers, and it is serves as a deterrent “to stop student plagiarism before it starts.” But my hope is that social work students will refrain from plagiarism not only because they “might get caught,” but because plagiarism is unethical and illegal.
As far as publishing their own work, there are many more opportunities for students than there used to be. Students can publish their own Web sites and blogs, and schools could have courses to teach students the technology to do this. Students can publish material on a Web site or a blog as a class project—for example, one class created a community resource Web site that listed various social service agencies in the community.
Students can also submit their work to various journals and publications that may be published online, or may have information online about how to submit to them.
In all of the above cases, students need to be aware of copyright law, fair use rules, and proper citation and quoting of sources.
Riolo: Is there anything you think relevant that you would like to add in closing?
Grobman: With the advent of “Web 2.0,” there are more and more opportunities for the general public to “publish” materials online. Two examples are Wikipedia and YouTube. Anyone can contribute to these, and as a result, several things can happen—
1) There is the opportunity for richer content, because the content is interactive and comes from “the people,”
2) There is the opportunity for bias and inaccuracy, because content can be published with little or no review by others,
3) there is more opportunity for plagiarism.
Also, students and social work professionals should be aware that their OWN material may be easily plagiarized by others who see their writing on a Web site, discussion forum, and so forth. They should be aware that they are the owners of their own intellectual property and should exercise their rights accordingly. If it is okay with them for others to copy their writing, they should state this.
Footnotes
1 Ms Grobman is one of the few if not the only discussion group moderator to not only have a policy but to enforce it. On many other discussion groups moderated by social workers it is often the moderator him or herself that is responsible for the majority of cutting and pasting. In some cases they have PhDs and have published in their own right.
2 This section of the social work code of ethics and other disciplines have similar codes applies to not only copyright infringements but to other examples covered in this website such as insurance fraud etc.
