by Max Barry

Latest Forum Topics

Advertisement

1

DispatchMetaReference

by The Higher Education Institute of LGBT University Founder. . 48 reads.

Copyright and Plagiarism at LGBT University

Copyright and Plagiarism

Copyright in NationStates

If you write something original for LGBT University you will retain the copyright to your material unless you choose to release your material under a different copyright licence, such as the Creative Commons licence described in the next section.

From the NationStates One Stop Rules Shop:

"Copyright: Users of Nationstates own the copyright to everything they post here under international law, assuming it's copyrightable material in the first place and belongs to them. The legal section only grants the site's Admins the licenses they need to store your material and make it viewable on someone else's computer. 'Royalty-free' means you cannot charge them for doing so. Were you to find someone had, for example, stolen your Nationstates weapon designs and used them in a movie or a line of toys, you as the copyright holder would still be fully entitled to take action against them. Putting something up in our forum does not remove your right of copyright ownership."

In general, if you write something for LGBT University, it'll be assumed that you are generally content for it to be featured in dispatches by the region, unless you specify otherwise.

Copyright for LGBT University materials

Creative Commons has a Linktool that can help content creators to decide which license is most appropriate for their work. In the case of LGBT University, most of the time, we would like to be able to share our answers widely, enable people to review and update materials, but not for commercial use (something that needs further discussion should we reach a point where we can make money and use it to make a difference). For these purposes, the LinkAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence is the most appropriate for our needs.

You can add this license to your contributions and dispatches by adding the following notice on the page:

[i]This work is licensed under a [url=http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/]Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License[/url].[/i]

It will look like this on the page:

This work is licensed under a LinkCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism (taking someone else's work as your own original work) is not acceptable in LGBT University Q&A dispatches. If you write something to answer a question about the community, and want to refer to research or materials by other people, you need to reference the original source. You can provide a reference at the point where you refer to or quote the source (preferred), or you can provide a list of sources at the end of your dispatch for interested readers.

LinkPlagiarism.org has advice on how to prevent plagiarism and ensure you give credit where it is due. As adapted to the needs of our region, this means:

  • You should consult other members of the region if you need advice

  • Planning your answers so that you understand what sources you are drawing from

  • Citing your sources. If in doubt, provide a reference!

  • Being clear about which claims are based on which sources

  • Paraphrasing: summarising material from other sources in your own words, as well as referencing the source you paraphrase

  • Analyse and evaluate your sources for quality. For example, sources might refer to other original materials that you can examine.

We want our answers to questions about LGBT issues to withstand scrutiny, while also making it easy for new members to get involved. So please bear the above in mind when contributing!

RawReport