Zuy Lynx Anim
Joined: Apr 1, 2006
Posts: 3 (view all)
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Gender & Age: Male & 24
Country: Vietnam
City: Ho Chi Minh City
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Education, technology & the protection of intellectual property
May 12, 2009 - 04:14 PM
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When I was in a state-run university, (which is considered a nation-top one in Vietnam - Foreign Trade University), I was little aware of the seriousness of the protection of IP. No teachers taught about it. No students cared about it. Most of our subjects required students to sit exams to pass. Sometimes we had to do assignments, but most of the time we could just use the works of other people, changed the name and the date, and handed them in to the teachers. The teachers, all aware of the situation, did not read them and just accepted our "works" as a ritual. Things like this happen virtually in any university in Vietnam.
Things changed completely when I decided to drop out of it to enroll myself in RMIT Ha Noi to receive a new and hopefully better type of education. And since the very first orientation day until now when I am in the second year, we students have been continuously reminded of a very important policy of the uni: plagiarism is strictly forbidden here. The reason is that, besides exams and exercises, we have to do a lot of research as part of our assessments, therefore the protection of IP is highly regarded and encouraged. No actual reward is given, but violation may lead to very severe punishment, including being excluded from the uni.
Technology has helped this a lot, due to the application of Turnitin (www.turnitin.com) throughout RMIT. We need to submit all our written research assignments to this online database to ensure that the works we have created do not belong to someone else. Obviously, without the help of technology, it is unimaginable for an ordinary teacher to know if the authorship is real or not. This encourages the students to be honest, to work harder and helps the assessment of teachers be more precise. By conforming to this rule, we students have acquired the habit, and most importantly, the right attitude towards intellectual property.
The current problem is that, for written works, it is possible to indicate authorship. For works such as photos, it is not that simple. With the help of powerful search engines like google images, we can find countless photos to enhance our written works. However, due to the fact that such photos have been copied and used in many websites, most of the time it is very difficult for us to find out the author and give credit to them.
This is the question for now: Do we need another database like Turnitin for non-word creations? And if yes, how shall we achieve that?
This post was edited on: 2009-05-12 at 04:19 PM by: animaunica
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