The 9 Elements of Digital Citizenship

Digital Law

Digital Law is a very complex and hot topic as information and access to created content becomes easier. For many it is a moral and ethical obligation, while others argue that taking others work without due process does no harm. Regardless, we have a legal responsibility to ensure we are protecting the work of each other as well as others. Work includes: images, text, media, videos, presentation and music. While this topic can become quite negative in nature, it is important to change our practices when interacting with content by understanding what you CAN do.

Quick Tips to Adhere to Academic Honesty & to Avoid Infringing on Copyright Laws:

• Students are expected to do their own work
• Cite any work from others that you have used within your work (includes oral, multi-media presentations and your writing)
  • There are limits to the amount of material which can be copied without obtaining express permission from the original author, so it's important to only cite or reference material that's meaningful and relevant.There's no need to provide a full paragraph quotation from a website or other source. Your teacher will be interested in your own ideas and impressions, not just information you can search on the internet.
• If you are using information music or images that others have created, you are to ask for their permission to use, or use creative commons domain materials and cite these sources in your references also
• Know what plagiarism is so you can avoid it:

  • Any of the following is plagiarism, without reference or acknowledgement of the original source, can be considered as plagiarism violations:

    • Direct duplication, by copying (or allowing to be copied)another person's work, from a book, article, web site, image, music, another student's assignment etc.

    • Paraphrasing of another person's work closely, making only minor changes to the wording but with the essential meaning, form or progression of ideas maintained.

    • Piecing together sections of the others' work into a new whole.

    • Submitting your own work which has already been submitted for assessment in another subject or course.

    • Producing assignments with other people (eg. Another student, a tutor) which is being assessed as your own independent work.

Tools That Teachers Can Use to Help Determine if Plagiarism has occurred:

Search Engines Such as Google
Teachers use search engines, like Google, to check students work against other, published sources. Teachers are familiar with sites like