John
Presumably your academics don't want the library to block access to the Internet in case students cut-and-paste from that, or from commercial full text or bibliographic databases that provide the facility. I think that the view is rather facile and wouldn't give in to it myself. As Ruth says there are other ways of preventing or detecting plagiarism.
It's not the facility that is the fault/problem. A student who is going to plagiarise will do so. Merely because a small number might use what is an intuitve and universally understood convenient tool for inappropriate ends does n't mean that everybody else should be penalised. We don't stop selling cars just because a few people might use them as getaway vehicles in bank robberies. Get them to address the real problem.
Laurence
Laurence W. Bebbington
Law Librarian
Hallward Library
The University of Nottingham
Nottingham
NG7 2RD
>>> [log in to unmask] 22/04/04 16:22:56 >>>
Colleagues,
We have been having a series of demos of e-book services this week at Kent
for library and academic staff. Whilst discussing a service this morning
one academic said she (and her colleagues) would prefer it if the books
had no 'copy and paste' facility as it would only encourage plagiarism.
She obviously felt strongly about this and even said the availability of
'copy and paste' could bias her and her fellow academics against
recommending the service to the Library.
Has anyone heard such comments from academics at their institution? Do you
know of any research into the opinion of academics on 'copy and paste' in
e-journals or e-books?
I have always thought the more facilities a service has and the more
'open' it is the better so I was surprised at this comment.
Regards,
John Smith,
The Templeman Library,
University of Kent.
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