My Paper is a Mashup
Tomorrow I will meet with the deans to convene a group to look at policies regarding plagiarism and academic dishonesty. The will be the second group I’ve worked with on this topic in the year I’ve been at Keene State. The most recent policies were approved by the College Senate only last spring.
The new group will mostly be looking at procedures in light of some administrative changes we’ve made recently. That is, what will the roles of the assistant deans and department chairs be in handling plagiarism cases that now begin with the dean of the school?
But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how our students create. This is a generation that creates content. Look all over the web. Keene State students are creating serial videos and posting them on YouTube. Other students are blogging their little hearts out. Still others are making music or sending tweets or…wait for it…even writing papers.
One big thing about the content that the millennials are creating is that often the freshest, most original creation is a mashup. Don’t know what a mashup is? First, consult Wikipedia:
- Mashup (web application hybrid), a web application that combines data and/or functionality from more than one source
- Mashup (music), a musical genre of songs that consist entirely of parts of other songs
- Mashup (video), a video that is edited from more than one source to appear as one
Mashups take content from more than one source and brings it together in a uniform whole, often–usually–without attribution. The new work is, well, new so there’s no need for attribution or recognition that the work is different than the sum of its parts. Those in the know will recognize the parts. For those not in the know, it doesn’t really matter.
In this context, academic dishonesty and plagiarism take on new meaning. Actually, they don’t really exist. If I take 10 sources and craft them together into something new, my paper, then the work is mine and not someone else’s. The act of bringing these disparate things together is an act of creation that makes the work that of its author. The new work might be considered commentary on the source material. It might be something completely different. In any case, it’s relation to the source material is irrelevent.
So how do we teach about citing sources and academic integrity in this environment? I don’t think it’s enough simply to publish policies that say, “Your work must be your own, and when it isn’t cite your sources.” For students, their work that brings together other sources IS their own.
We need to draw distinctions. We need to be clearer about the academic pursuit. We also have to realize that we’re still bringing students into a different universe. We need to ground them in ethics and yet not stamp out their creativity.
And for those of you who’ve made it this far, one of my favorite mashups. For most people reading this, the music will be the familiar piece. For the 40 million or so kids who are part of the High School Musical generation, they’ll have no clue who Gloria Gaynor is. But this is something new: Zac Efron Will Survive