Publishing SIG Plagiarizing from the Internet

The original question (posted by Dora Rollins of Washinton State University):

I am wondering what experiences members have had with plagiarism, especially among Extension publications that address a public need with basic information likely found on the Web (i.e., likely committed out of ignorance rather than malice).

The Responses:

This is certainly a concern of mine (University of Idaho). I’m glad you are bringing this up. I do not have a handle on it, though will bring it up with Diane Noel and my boss at our next publishing unit meeting.

Mary Ann Reese
University of Idaho

Dora, I do want to note that I see some authors believing that if a photo is on the web, it's okay for use. Now, I understand that point, but I still work to get the okay to use the photo in the document. I would prefer to see authors submitting photos which they've taken than to try and get permission for a photo on the web, unless it's from the USDA.

When I was teaching technical communication in the UNL journalism college, I often saw students "writing" a paper take quite a bit of copy from a web site or brochure, document it, but still use it to fill their five pages or whatever was due. I'm sure it never occurred to them that that wasn't the point of the assignment; it was better than their writing, so why not use it, they thought, as long as it's documented. Perhaps the same thought process here. :)

Barbara Rixtine, UNL

At Mississippi State, we had a big problem a couple of years ago with one of our Extension faculty specialists plagiarizing from the Internet. Fortunately, the editor was alerted to the problem and did some Internet searches to verify. In addition to blatantly copying the material into the manuscripts for a series of Extension publications, the specialist had the nerve to put her own name on the publication as author with no mention of any other sources.

We took the matter to her department head, who met with her. It got kind of ugly, but in the long run we prevailed and required that she obtain letters of permission from all the sources from which she had drawn material and that she credit those sources on the publications.

Since that time our editors have begun to do random periodic Internet searches for passages from manuscripts being submitted, especially when we don't know the author and his or her ethical standards well.

In the case I described, it is hard to tell whether the specialist knew that she was violating copyright law and just didn't care or whether she, like so many others, think that everything on the Internet is free for the taking! I do a training workshop about intellectual property (copyright and trademark) for communications people and Extension agents, and ignorance on this topic is widespread among those attending.

Tom Knecht , Mississippi State

Dora, Yes, we are seeing some of this. It is so recent that I have not done anything about it yet. I will ask the "author" to plug in some sources where needed, and if necessary I will ask for permission to publish.

Sue Keller, Alaska Sea Grant

We have experienced this problem in Virginia. In my opinion, it seems to be most prevalent in the disciplines where we are short on specialists. We have noticed an increase in authorship by graduate students and they seem to be the worst culprits. Our specialist faculty are stretched thin in some areas and are looking for help in writing publications. In one case, our editor was fact-checking a publication, and when she went to the federal government internet site to check on the facts, she found that the publication was copied word-for-word from that site, without any citation.

Our only remedy has been to call it to the attention of the author, and sometimes to the program leader or other administrator. When we’ve done that, the administrators have been fully supportive of our feeling that this type of “writing” is not appropriate for an Extension publication. Some of the authors have seem confused as to what they’ve done “wrong.”

I’ve also noticed that new Extension publications seem to include longer and longer lists of “references.” I can remember when most publications had one or two (usually other states’ Extension publications!) listed as source material, or as places to get more information. Now it seems like every publication has 6, or 8, or 10 “references,” most of them websites, that the author has gathered information from. One could argue that this is not a bad thing — the internet allows authors to examine a topic from many angles by providing easy access to so much information -- but I worry that what is actually happening is what you mention: the process of “writing” a publication consists of copying information from multiple internet sources and pasting it together.

Overall, we’ve only experienced this a few times (that we know of), so I can’t say it is widespread. But I wanted to respond because it worries me that if this becomes a trend, it could eventually degrade the quality of our publications.

Linda Burcham, Virginia Tech

Good/big subject. I have had issues with this for most of the 8 years that I've been in this job. (It's one of the reasons our publications say "prepared by" before the author's name.) It's complicated, because aside from issues of plagiarism, misrepresentation, and professional courtesy/protocol, many of the sources are not government/public domain material, and the copyright vulnerability is huge. Our university has been sued twice for copyright infringement resulting from material taken from the Internet. So as a result I now spend about 30 percent of my time handling copyright/permissions issues and educating/training staff about copyright. Attached are some materials I developed/use, FYI. The primer is getting old and needs updating, but is meant to raise awareness about the issues. The checklist is based on one developed by Tom Knecht in Mississippi. Perhaps we can devote a new section of the PubSIG Web site to this if you get a lot of responses.

Kyle McCaskill, University of Maine

It's not a problem here at Purdue--as far as I know--but I agree with you that it would be a problem were it occurring.

I'd love to see a Commentary submission from you for JOE on the subject.

Many Extension people are still kind of loosey goosey on the whole issue.

Laura Hoelscher, Purdue University

Sounds like a good topic to me. I work with (at least) two different types of publications. The Extension bulletins that will be published in print and pdf and sold by the bulletin office are cited properly. I also edit 5 in-season crop newsletters. The authors hand us the text/images in the morning and the information is on the Internet or headed to the quick printer by afternoon because the content addresses current field conditions. In the "quick-n-dirty" newsletters, there is more likely to be something like "Information for this article was drawn from www.xxx.edu." The farmers do not want to read a scholarly format, so journal-style citations are awkward. "Blurred" is a good descriptor.

Joy Landis , Michigan State University

It's interesting you've brought this up, as it's been on my mind a great deal lately, and I have some thoughts to share. I'll preface by saying that I'm and editor at Michigan State University, producing two print extension publications, content for which is written by campus faculty and field educators. I'm also a graduate student in digital rhetoric, which concerns itself with issues of how the web affects the composition process, including matters of intellectual property law.

In my work as an extension publication editor, I have not experienced the kind of re-appropriation you're describing in terms of text (or maybe I just haven't been looking for it?), but I see a great deal of audio/visual materials being used without regard for copyright. In my own publication, submissions often include images that have been used without credit or permission. A red flag of this practice is when the images are at a resolution of 72 dpi, as are all images viewed in web browsers. I also just yesterday was exploring some extension training videos produced by another dept. at MSU and found popular music being used without credit or permission.

I'm not sure what's driving these trends, but I suspect a lot of it can be traced to confusion over what does and does not constitute fair use of intellectual property. I think that many educators who "borrow" text, images, or audio for extension efforts would argue that because the material is being used to educate without profit, such activity constitutes fair use. This is, of course, not the case. While I think the statement "more education is needed" is often used as an easy-out in our field, I think it's true here. As technology has made it easier to steal, we have not reconsidered what is and is not stealing, nor have we taken efforts to increase education about what is and is not stealing.

Also of great interest to me is the increasing availability of open source and re-use licensed materials on the web. Lawrence Lessig's work with Creative Commons, and the partnering of those efforts with Flickr, make finding images that are okay to use a breeze. And then there are cool free resources for teaching about copyright and intellectual property like "Bound by Law," from the Duke University Law school.

I understand you're more interested in textual appropriation, and I think that's an even harder issue to tackle. Why does the technology that makes it easier to copy lead people to copy more? Do these people realize their copying, or do they consider the activity something else? In an extension context, is this activity doing a disservice to the producer (recycling of the same info, factualizing anecdote through repetition, etc.) or is it enhancing the experience by getting valuable info to them through multiple channels? From a legal standpoint, when push to comes to shove and an original author cries fowl, who's left holding the ball- the copier, the extension unit, the university?

Sorry if I've rambled or stated the obvious, I get excited talking about these subjects. There's a lot of different ways to approach the kind of work you're thinking about in engaging in and I'll look forward to hearing about how it turns out.

Jake McCarthy , Michigan State University

Yes, this sounds familiar. At University of Maryland we've been finding that some Extension authors are copying directly from the web without getting permission and not citing full sources. As you've expressed, it's not so much that authors are trying to pass another's work on as their own as they think the web is public domain, especially if their publication is a local newsletter. I know vaguely of one instance in which the provost got involved and determined that the author in question hadn't committed plagiarism.

What our communications unit has done for the past two years is hold copyright & fair use seminars at our Extension annual conferences. Both classes were well-attended. In researching to prepare for the sessions I've found that a number of land-grants (& other universities) have good websites about educational use of copyrighted material, including an explanation of the four-factor fair-use test.

We briefly cover copyright & fair use on our site at http://agnradmin.umd.edu/Copyright/index.cfm but I've been thinking about turning it into a more comprehensive handbook (maybe in print & online) on the subject. I'd be interested in collaborating with other ACE members in a joint venture, if you're interested (not that I have time, of course(!), but I think this is an important issue).

BTW, eXtension's web seminar on CR was quite good. It's an hour and a half long and available at http://about.extension.org/wiki/Recordings_of_eXtension_Professional_Development_Sessions

Virginia Gerhart, University of Maryland

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Last updated 05/13/2008.