As a Citizen, you should always model crediting sources appropriately. Reflect on materials that you have shared with your students. If you have included images in a presentation, have you consistently cited them appropriately? Have you called attention to your attributions? Have you included reference lists for your students and encouraged them to learn more by referring to those resources? Write an honest reflection about your own habits regarding respect for intellectual property.
Honestly, my habits regarding intellectual property are lazy. It isn’t that I don’t want to give people credit for their intellectual property. It isn’t that I do not know how to properly cite resources. It honestly comes down to time and use – and I do a better job on my personal social media than I do on school resources that I create.
In my personal social media, I am a “fangirl”. I share photos, videos and screenshots of the shows and actors that are central to that fandom. I am sensitive to the artists, photographers and videographers who create content within the fandom and give them credit for their intellectual property when sharing their works on Twitter. It is an on-going discussion within fandom because there are big name retailers who have appropriated fan created images and ideas for products. The concept of intellectual property rights is a vibrant and on-going conversation within that community.
Unfortunately, I do not carry over that same level of rigor to my classroom despite being a library media specialist. When I create resources for my students, I start out by searching Google using the Usage Rights Tools located within Images. Choosing resources with reuse rights is my first go to. I will also search Flickr using a Creative Commons search. The truth of the matter though is I usually have an idea of what I want an image to look like, and if I cannot find it with reuse rights, I will do a general search find one that meets my needs. I tell myself that it is a tool for my students, I am not making any money off of the image, and no one will know the difference, but it is still a violation of the intellectual property rights of the image creator. I know this, but it does not deter me. I also do not cite the images I use with students. I create my pretty visuals and use them in class without addressing copyright.
I need to do a much better job of modeling good habits for respecting intellectual property. I need to consistently credit my resources and show my students how they can use my citations to dig deeper. I need to make sure I am using photos that have attributions that allow for reuse rather than just using what I like. In general, I need to use the same level of care and sensitivity in my professional work that I use in my personal sharing.
RocketLibrarian 