Academic Integrity in a Digital Age

Research is among the core functions of any Academic institution. Within disciplines such as education, Sciences, and health, research often entails the processing of personal data, including sensitive personal data. There may also be a situation when the University is involved in international research that may involve the transfer of personal data overseas through the internet. This section discusses the use of information and communication technologies in academic institutions including public and private sectors and the information privacy law as a response.

Research on ICT environment

One of the major concerns about data privacy revolves around the protection of data in research. We can all acknowledge that any academic research involves the disclosure of private and otherwise confidential information. Such information is used in examining varied aspects of the society so as to have a better understanding of the same. However, the advent of technology, while having increased effectiveness in collection, storage and retrieval of such data, has also resulted in higher susceptibility of such information. In most cases, such data falls in the wrong hands as a result of carelessness, while there are instances where hackers attack the institutions’ data systems.

We can see that recent advances in technology and telecommunications have significantly changed the background of education in the world. Nowadays textbooks, photocopies, and filmstrips supplied with the entire educational content to a classroom full of students have gone leaving everything being placed online. Early adopters of these technologies have demonstrated their potential to transform the educational process, but they have also called attention to possible challenges. In particular, the information sharing, web-hosting, and telecommunication innovations has enabled these new educational technologies to raise questions about how best we can protect researcher’s privacy during use.

Online publication

Making publications available electronically is hotly becoming a debate. The introduction of the internet and mobile technology has greatly revolutionized the formal traditional industry. Many Organizations are now evaluating whether they need to take their publications online, keep them in print or the combination of two. To understand who has something to gain or lose by adapting to online publication, it is necessary to understand the roles involved in the publication and the social infrastructure that are affected by changing publishing approaches.

The Infrastructure of publication

The publication process normally involves one or more of the following groups;

• Authors
• Publishers
• Third party institutions
• Users

When considering traditional publishing, the publishers serve as truthful brokers between authors who wish to disseminate their thoughts, ideas and knowledge and the users of those works (readers; learners; in general, interested parties). Third party institutions include the schools, professional organizations, research labs and companies with whom these authors are affiliated.

The emergence of the internet, especially web seems to be now challenging the relationships that existed between these parties. We can recall that, previously publishers provided peer reviewed materials of the authors they would like to publish. The author’s peers in their respective discipline were recruited without pay, no cost, but through a reward system with the Institute they are affiliated to. This process has resulted in delay for publication of new findings, hence the rapid information sharing is compromised. However the integrity of this process is being assured. With the evolution of the internet and use of the web, authors can now publish their findings immediately; however the legitimacy needed by the third party institutions and the general audience of users is still a challenge. To fight against the failure of online publications, publishers need to maintain all aspects of traditional print publications.

The role of copyright

You can recall what we have discussed about copyright issues and its infringements from topic two of this module. Now let us see the role of copyright when it comes to online publications.

Copyright issues seem to be challenging when considering the world of online publishing. Copyright law is the concept that the authors own the materials they have invented in any tangible medium of expression from which it can be perceived, reproduced, or communicated either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. However, when considering online publication, this law seems to be missing. The ease with which authors can put their inventions online and share with others can be crashed with the rights emphasized by publishers. The issue is publishers cannot control the remunerative compensation of those bits travelling to all parts of the world. Now to retain control the licensing and ownership of content by publishers is widely increasing. In 2001, Creative Commons was founded with the intention of making online information more easily accessible. Creative Commons have developed a set of machine-readable licenses that authors can use to share their inventions. Also Creative Commons provides a means for authors to contribute their inventions to the public domain. When the copyright is donated to the public, no license is being involved.

Collaboration in Research work

We can recall the traditional publication process could not easily support authors with the same research interests to share their work together in publishing their knowledge. Due to vast changes in technology, nowadays it has become very common for researchers to work with each other across institutions and geographic boundaries. This is among the advantages of online publication over print-based as authors can share their knowledge freely, allowing their invention discussed, given comments, reworked and re-published. Sharing of knowledge can result in new research ideas, hypothesis, and even advancement of knowledge.

Another advantage is that, as authors can communicate online, it is possible for them to communicate more effectively by incorporating images, simulations, audio and videos, hence make their findings more interesting and best delivered to the interested parties. This type of communication provides a more interactive environment which not only convey knowledge in new and exciting, but also demoralizing publishers with old styled publishing techniques. Furthermore, online publication or “web of collaboration” can allow author’s inventions be linked with other resources that help them to further explain the message they wish to convey. Now days there are different forms of online publication with interactive dialog parts which allow users to provide feedback.

Protecting online content

Now we have seen the infrastructure, copyright and collaboration issues of online publication; there might raise a question “How can we protect the online publications from an unauthorised access?” The answer is simply protecting the web page by using “encryption” (converting data into a certain form that cannot easily be understood by unauthorised people) and passwords. The website owner can prevent users from downloading, copying, forwarding or even printing the content. The content can be encrypted and can be viewed only if accessed from the authorized servers.