Thing 7: Digital Citizenship
In the first section of this course we have touched on the ways of being in the digital and online world. Whether that is making the digital world more accessible, more diverse, or being more respectful of your own personal and professional boundaries. These themes collectively contribute to the notion of ‘digital citizenship’.
Here at the University of Edinburgh, digital citizenship is especially important to our staff and students’ commitment to fostering safe and inclusive spaces both across campus and online.
As a student or staff member, it is your social responsibility to be a good digital citizen, which means treating others with dignity and respect in both physical and virtual spaces.
What is a Digital Citizen?
The term digital citizen refers to someone with the knowledge and skill set to use digital technology to effectively communicate with others, both online and offline.
Typically, the term is used in reference to how we can better the experience of the digital world for others.
Why is Digital Citizenship important?
Oftentimes when we interact with the online world, it can sometimes feel removed from our real-life communities and actions. However, as we have learned throughout this course, that is not always the case.
Digital citizenship is an important skill to master as it empowers you to represent yourself online, in a way that you choose, while also being respectful of others.
In the context of university activities, digital citizenship provides a unique opportunity for you as students and staff to actively honour University of Edinburgh values:
- We will set an example for others by conducting ourselves with integrity, transparency, honesty and clarity at all times.
- We will always value and protect freedom of expression, while respecting the boundaries dictated by law, decency, ethics and respect for others.
– https://www.ed.ac.uk/about/strategy-2030/our-focus/people
How can I be respectful in digital spaces?
The University’s Digital Safety, Wellbeing and Citizenship Hub recommends four key skills to remember when becoming a good digital citizen, to accurately stand for yourself and the University in a positive light:
Use the Golden Rule
How you behave in virtual spaces shouldn’t differ from how you behave in physical spaces. It’s important to act with empathy, compassion and kindness in both your online and offline interactions.
Respect differences
The University prides itself on fostering a truly international community, which means respecting cultural differences and honouring diverse perspectives. If you disagree with someone online, engage thoughtfully and avoid personal attacks.
Pause before posting
The internet is a place of knowledge exchange, but conversations can get heated. It’s worth pausing for a moment before responding to anything in anger. Avoid posting or sending anything that could hurt someone else, damage someone’s reputation or that of the University, or threaten either your own safety or the safety of others.
Stand up for yourself and others
If you ever feel unsafe online, tell someone; A friend or parent, your tutor or course organiser. You can also support others who are targets of online abuse or cruelty by reporting activity that threatens a person’s safety and preserving evidence of inappropriate or unsafe behaviour.
Learn about the student support model including student advisor, wellbeing service, and cohort lead
For more information on digital citizenship you can visit the University of Edinburgh Digital Citizenship Guide.
How to complete Thing 7
Write a blog post reflecting on a time you felt online spaces could have been improved by the notion of Digital Citizenship, implementing the topics covered in this course.
OR
Watch the last chapter in Pete Burnap’s TEDx talk ‘Making the Internet a Safer Place’ and write a blog post reflecting on how you think initiatives like Digital Citizenship could help to make online spaces more accessible.
Making The Internet A Safer Place | Pete Burnap | TEDxCardiff
Thing 8: Copyright
An understanding of copyright, licensing, and how to ethically re-use materials created by others is an important aspect of both digital literacy and acting with integrity as a student and moving forward into professional life.
Copyright
Copyright is an area of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) that covers the rights of authors of creative works. IPR are the rights given to people over the creations of their minds, usually for a set period of time. In the UK, copyright protection applies automatically, you don’t have to apply for it, register it, or pay a fee. You automatically receive copyright protection when you create an original work.
Copyright prevents people from:
- copying your work
- distributing copies of it, whether free of charge or for sale
- renting or lending copies of your work
- performing, showing or playing your work in public
- making an adaptation of your work
- putting it on the internet
If you want, you can mark your work with the copyright symbol (©), your name, and the year of creation, however this does not affect the level of protection you have.
Once copyright expires, creative works enter the Public Domain, where they can be freely used for any purpose, without restrictions. Information on the duration of copyright protection in the UK
If you regularly create and publish content to online platforms, including text, images, videos, or reviews, including remixes, mashups and memes, gameplay, and fan works, then it would be wise to take a moment to review and understand how copyright applies to these types of User-Generated Content (UGC). Online platforms have responsibilities to mediate this through copyright enforcement mechanisms. Information on UGC copyright considerations
Copyrightuser.org is a useful and accessible source of information, advice and guidance on UK copyright.
Copyright and the University
If you are a student, you own the copyright of your own works, e.g., course work assignments, essays, projects, dissertations. You also have access to an exception in UK copyright law that allows the re-use of copyright protected work within assessed educational content. For example, you can include images, artwork, or media in assessed pieces of work you submit as part of your course. This only applies within the assessed learning space; you don’t have the right to then share that work in a public space.
To find out more about copyright for students, including copyright exceptions and using copyright works, visit Copyright and Students.
Licences
A copyright licence is the permission a rights holder provides that dictates how others may, and may not, use a copyrighted work.
Many universities subscribe to the UK’s Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) which allows certain use and reproduction of copyrighted works within a closed educational environment. Closed educational environments are the teaching spaces used by the teachers and their students only. This includes physical classrooms and password protected Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) such as Learn.
As more teaching and learning moves online, it’s important to be aware of when you are in closed (password protected) or open spaces, that anyone can access, as this will affect how you can use and share copyrighted works.
Open Licences and Creative Commons
Open licences allow authors and creators to share their works freely and openly, while still protecting their Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).
The most commonly used open licenses are Creative Commons (CC). Creative Commons is a global nonprofit organisation that provides creators with legal tools and open licences to enable them to share their own works. The Creative Commons licences are designed to be accessible, user friendly and easy to use.
Each Creative Commons licence is made up of different clauses that indicate how a work may or may not be used. Visit the Creative Commons website to learn more about these licences: About Creative Commons Licences
Attribution
If you use a Creative Commons licensed resource, you must provide attribution to the creator. Good attribution includes the following information:
- Title: The title of the resource.
- Creator: The name of the creator or copyright holder.
- Licence: The licence used and a link back to the licence on the Creative Commons website.
- Source: A link to the original source of the resource.
Creative Commons provides information on Best Practices for Attribution.
How to complete Thing 8
Step 1
Visit OpenVerse or Wikimedia Commons and search for two Creative Commons licensed resources that relate to your research or studies. You can also find Creative Commons images using Google image search. If you click on the Tools button below the search bar you can choose to filter by Creative Commons licensed images. If you do this make sure you click through to the source page of the image to check the details of the licence.
Step 2
Share these resources in a short blog post, along with the correct attribution. Identify what licence they have been shared with, and how they can be re-used. Do you have any reflections about what you‘ve learned about copyright, licences, and Creative Commons?
Further Resources
The University’s Open Educational Resources Service provides advice and guidance on copyright, licensing and Creative Commons with the video channel Open.Ed in just a minute and How To Guides on the website.
Staff and postgraduate students can sign up for Creative Commons Quick Start a short, 30 minute, online digital skills workshop that runs monthly.
The University Library provides a wealth of information about Copyright, including the Copyright Enquiries Service, which offers help and support with any copyright-related queries.
Creative Commons Wiki provides in-depth information about all aspects of Creative Commons licensing.
To find a Chat use a search engine to see if there is a directory of Chats for your country/region and find something you’d be interested in chatting about.
