REL22: Buddhist Meditation Traditions Essay One Available
My first essay for REL22: Buddhist Meditation Traditions is now available in the Uni Papers section of this site. You can follow this link to view the paper.
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Comments
Making essays publicly available
Hey Simon,It's interesting that you have written this post, making available your Uni essay to the public. Just this morning I recieved and email from a past unit convenor informing me that an essay that I made publicly available last year has been recently plagiarised. I was told that I should remove this essay from the public domain as it may be construed as "encouraging or assisting another person to commit plagiarism," which is against university plagiarism policies. Further to this, in making my essay publicly available, it may be deemed as participating in essay recycling.I just wonder what your thoughts are on this?
Re: Nathan's Comment
Thanks for pointing that out Nath. This is something that I haven't thought about in a little while.
May I ask what subject area your unit convener was situated in?
As for my work, I've been plagarised too. I've been notified seven times that the essays I share here have been used in this way. Further, I have eleven pieces of assessment that I've not shared here because I've been so requested by University administration.
I don't really see how posting my work is encouraging plagiarism any more than sharing paper copies on campus would be. It is common practice for students to exchange notes, drafts, and final copies on campus so I don't see why posting them on the net is any different other than perhaps in scale.
Each University has a different policy over who 'owns' the submitted piece of assessment. All of the work I share here is technically 'owned' by the Universities that I study with. Because of this I notify all of my T.A.s that I share my work here. Other than the eleven essays that I've been requested not to share I've received nothing but encouragement for sharing my work.
What's 'essay recycling' Nath? I've not come across this term before. Is it just a euphemism for plagiarism?
I don't see what the Uni's problem is with sharing work. I've recently opened comments on all of my papers presented on this site because one of the reasons that I share my work is so I can get feedback. Most comments are submitted privately but this process really helps me to gain a better understanding of the subject matter. Some of my T.A.s don't give that much feedback so as an external student I look for it elsewhere.
Even though I've never received anything less than a credit I do not post what grade I received for each paper presented on this site, nor do I attach the T.A.s comments to the paper. This was something that I hoped would discourage plagiarism. If you're the type of person who is looking to plagiarise then you obviously don't know the subject matter well, therefore you can't judge whether my work sufficiently answers your questions. Further, if you're going to plagiarise you'd be a bloody idiot to copy one of my papers and submit it for a course that I've taken, All of my T.A.s, Lecturers and Course Coordinators are familiar with this site and what I do so you're not going to get away with it. Also, you'd be breaking my site's license.
essay recycling
Basically, essay recycling is, as you've suggested, a euphemism for plagiarism. My unit convenor on the other hand is situated in the English Dept of the Humanities division at MQ.This is the first time anything like this has happened to my work. For the most part, I haven't made my essays available for public consumption. In fact, the essay that was plagiarised is the only essay I've made available - which, incidently, I made available on our MQ blog. Basically, the problem I face, or possibly face, is: "Assisting another person to commit plagiarism may attract the same penalties which apply to plagiarism" (See here for full review). What concerns me is that my ability to publish my work in a format of my choosing, on the basis of gaining critical feedback in order to further my academic skills, has diminished. With guidlines like these, it makes it hard for (seemingly) anyone to publish their work; with this logic, any publication is "assisting another person to commit plagiarism". Where do you draw the line?I have deleted the post in question, I don't want a) myself getting into any strife over this, and b) any unecessary attention being focused on our blog. I may, however, write a post about this topic and get Waz and Brad in on the discussion. If you don't mind, I may just write a quick post linking them to our discussion here.In any case, I'm awaiting more feedback from the course convenor. I'd like to know if the students involved were in any way punished.
Re: Essay Recycling
Thanks for the link Nath.
I'm still a little unsure as to how you or I publishing our work online constitutes assistance of plagiarism. Macquarie University's own definition of Plagarism seems to assume that the student has some form of malicious intent, that he or she intentionally plagiarises an other's work. How is it that what we do encourages this behaviour? I don't know these students, I'm not in contact with them in any way, and all of my work is properly referenced. Anyone who plagarises anything of mine is doing so of their own volition.
Link here as often as you like, the trackback address is above. Do, however, let me know when you send it as I need to approve any trackbacks (I get a lot of trackback spam). This would be a very interesting topic for our upcoming Philosophy Carnival entry, perhaps you can work it in to that.
Re: Essay recycling
This is an issue that has been on my mind since I started blogging, and although I agree strongly with the view that we should be able to seek feedback online as we might seek feedback on campus, I have nevertheless refrained from posting my essays and assignments. It seems odd that a student would be potentially accused of collusion in acts of plagiarism. I am not aware of any examples of non-students, or established authors, being held to similar publishing restrictions or accusations.
I have been advised by one of my tutors last year that the university owns our work once it has been submitted. This has been echoed above by Simon. I think that is the point that we need to keep in mind. If we seek permission before publishing "the university property", and our request is approved, there should be no academic repercussions for us later. It might also be necessary to document such approval in writing.
Re: Essay Recycling - Brad
It would be an interesting situation, would it not, if a publisher said to an author 'I'm not going to publish this because it is in such high demand that it will likely be plagarised'.
Anyhow, I don't ask if I can share my work here for every piece. I do, however, respect my teacher's/Uni Admin's requests to remove certain material if they ask.
Nath, if you aren't going to write about this for our upcoming Philosopher's Carnival entry then I would like to. It would be great to have some feedback from some international Philosophy academics on this issue.
Quick thought. Are we liable for academic (or any other) penalty from other institutions or is this an internal only affair?