I checked the two versions side-by-side and, indeed, there are quite a number of sentences that are verbatim copies of those composed by Hein Bijlmakers. This is unlikely just an accident. Payal Das is likely to have used Bijlmakers'page as a source, not just to familiarize herself with the content but to actually copy it.
I personally like the look and feel of Payal's page better than that of Bijlmakers, though both pages are similarly informative. Obviously, Payal should have referenced her source. Better still, she could have approached Bijlmakers beforehand, asking him authorization to use his material with attribution of the original authorship. On the other hand, content wise, there is nothing particularly original in either of the two pages. The basic information in each of them can probably be found in hundreds, if not tens of thousand, such sources, with slight variations in how body parts and the like are being described. Had just a couple of sentences been exactly the same, it would have been no surprise. The problem here seems to be that Payal simply didn't take the trouble to formulate those things in her own words after having consulted multiple sources and possibly relied on a single source. It appears to me that it would be worth for Payal Das and Hein Bijlmakers to get in touch with each other and discuss how this could be set straight. It could perhaps lead to collaboration after the fact, though I understand and respect Bijlmakers point that material that was directly copied from his page should be removed. Having said the above, there may be good reasons for providing training in the WE community beyond the issues currently covered in the L4C workshops, focusing particularly on familiarizing would-be authors with the established code of ethics. Jan -- Jan Visser, Ph.D. President & Sr. Researcher, Learning Development Institute E-mail: [email protected] Check out: http://www.learndev.org and http://www.facebook.com/learndev Blog: http://jvisser-ldi.blogspot.com/ _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Alison Snieckus Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 4:58 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [WikiEducator] removing entomology content Definitely something we should address. My inclination would be to have us make a good faith effort to revise the material so that it is not a direct copy of the original and in the process make it more of a learning resource (e.g., including activities and reflections) targeted to a particular audience. For example, see the WE resource Deforestation <http://en.wikieducator.org/Deforestation> . The original would be listed as a resource. I wonder if the original author, PDas, would be willing to work on this. I'm happy to help. Alison http://en.wikieducator.org/User:ASnieckus On Wed, Apr 7, 2010 at 6:33 AM, Randy Fisher <[email protected]> wrote: Hi Everyone, This individual has joined our group, and posted the following message: I have noticed that the page http://nz.wikieducator.org/ENTOMOLOGY is a copy of the text from my personal website http://www.bijlmakers.com/entomology/begin.htm Some pictures have been changed, but generally it is my page and not yours. You have copied it without my permission and that's why I think you should remove it. Best regards, Hein Bijlmakers I did a search on the history of the page - and http://nz.wikieducator.org/User:PDas (a student in India) is responsible for this. WE certainly don't want to have material without other folks' permission on WE. At the same time, people do make honest mistakes. Thoughts, Ideas here? - Randy -- ________________ Randy Fisher, MA, OMD Senior Consultant, Organization Development, E-Learning, Collaboration & Performance Intersol Group, Canada Senior Consultant, Organization & Capacity Development International Centre for Open Education / OER Foundation, New Zealand Elected Member, WikiEducator Community Council, www.wikieducator.org +1 613.722.5577 (EST) Skype: wikirandy Blog: http://collaborativeengagement.wordpress.com * Stakeholder Engagement & Project Implementation * Change & Transition Management * E-Learning, Online Collaboration & Learning Communities * Coaching & Facilitation * My Bio: http://www.communitybuildingexpert.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. 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