Research 2



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Faculty Resources > Teaching Material/Technology Tools > Research 2.0

 

Research 2.0

 

 

Has the Internet caused a rise in plagiarism?  This question turned accusation has grown in interest and intensity since the Internet reached an audience of 10 million users in 1996.  This is about the same time that articles began to appear online warning instructors of how students could use the Internet to plagiarize such as Jane McKenzie’s now classic, “The New Plagiarism: Seven Antidotes to Prevent Highway Robbery in an Electronic Age.” 

 

While student cheating and plagiarizing has a long and well established history that predates the Internet, there is no denying that writing with technology has impacted access and use of information.  On the one hand, the positive result of writing with technology has been an increase in writing and revision.  The negative consequence has been the explosion of what some call the cut and paste generation faced with the ever present temptation to use the words, images, and ideas of others without proper attribution. 

The resources presented in this wiki take the perspective that the merging of technology, writing, and research has brought new opportunities for involvement, collaboration, and distribution and well as new challenges for conducting responsible research.  These challenges require one to understand what is happening online where vast amounts of information are accessible, and the space between users, audience, and authors has merged and blurred.  Consequently, this wiki embraces the ideas and technologies of Web 2.0 as we present responsible research resources for the GW community, or what we're calling "Research 2.0."

Web 2.0 is a concept coined by Tim O'Reilly to mean the many layers and dimensions of interconnectivity now operating on the Internet.  Some might say that if the early days of the Internet (Web 1.0) was about access to static content, the Internet today (or Web 2.0) is more about collaborative content aided by tools that facilitate social networking and many- to-many content generation.

 

To help explain the concept, in 2007, Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University made a video titled "Web 2.0, The Machine is Us/ing Us," that he released on YouTube.  The video is provided below.

 

 

Education Challenges of Today's Digital Reality

 

This wiki examines how web 2.0 applications can be used in the classroom

 

 

Teacher, author, and innovator David Warlick responds to the question “What is your greatest challenge in teaching appropriate, ethical use of web-based media to your students?” on his blog “2¢ Worth” http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

 

 

Researching with Web 2.0 Tools

 

This Wiki presents links to search tools that help one research deeper into the web than simple keyword searches.  The tools includes tools that help you search for text, images and videos and tools that help you validate the credibility  of sites.

 

 

This wiki was developed to accompany a workshop by the same name given by Eric Hoefler.  The wiki begins by examining how Web 2.0 is changing how we think about research.  The first part provides links to tools and the second part examines concepts such as the deep web, copyright and plagiarism, and tagging.

 

Organizations

 

The Digital Future Coalition strives to find "an appropriate balance in law and public policy between protecting intellectual property and affording public access to it."  Created in 1995, this 42-member group is made up of academic and professional organizations  and monitors and advocates on intellectual property issues. 

 

Founded in 2001 as a response to the tensions caused by copyright issues raised by digital developments, this organization developed the Creative Commons License to provide creators a way to protect their work while at the same time encouraging open and creative use of it through a "some rights reserved" licensing.  In addition to explaining the Creative Commons license and providing a easy system for using it, the site also offers links to Creative Commons-licensed media

 

 

Publications

 

Lessig, Stanford law professor and new media intellectual property scholar and visionary, examines how media companies are using technology law to limit "the public domain of ideas." The book is available for free as a downloadable pdf file through a Creative Commons license. There is also a video of Lessig speaking about Free Culture from the 2002 O'Reilly Open Source Conference.  

 

 

 

Wikipedia 

Wikipedia, a marvel in demonstrating the power of social networking in building content, is not without its controversy.  Below are links to examples of the challenges presented by audience-generated content.

 

In 2005, an article was published in Nature that claimed that information found on Wikipedia was as accurate as the Encyclopedia Britannica.  Britannica printed a 20 page rebuttal on its corporate web site.  Nature responded with its own press release rebuttal.
 
This segment from a July 30, 2006 "Colbert Report" from Comedy Central brings a humorous look at the benefits and liabilities of audience-generated content.  This segment of the Cobert Report's The Word titled "Wikialityhttp://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=72347