Using Intellectual Property at University
Discussed in this post:
Intellectual property is an integral part of your academic studies.
You will both create and use the intellectual property regularly throughout your studies.
The intellectual property rights of a work are proof of a person’s creativity and effort.
It shows that a given person has come up with an original idea, invention, research, or art form that no one else has presented before. And as such, it’s also a way of rewarding that individual.
Every time a student uses a piece of secondary research or published material created by someone else, they are using a piece of intellectual property.
What is intellectual property
Intellectual Property also known as IP, describes the work created by the mind or imagination.
There are four types of intellectual property: copyright, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets.
Intellectual property (IP) is protected by law.
This protection enables people to benefit from the work they create.
Examples of IP you might encounter at university might include journal articles, books, films, lecture slides, lecture handouts or notes,
Intellectual property at university
The intellectual property you will most commonly use at university will be copyright-protected material.
Copyright is a type of intellectual property protection that is automatically assigned to an author’s work as soon as it is published.
Copyright and intellectual property are important to understand because it describes the ownership of a piece of secondary research that you may use in your studies.
When you use IP in your research or writing it is important to make a note of the bibliographic description so you can attribute any reference you may include in your work.
If you include a quote, summary of a concept, or paraphrase a view of another author without including the reference this is plagiarism.
Plagiarism has serious consequences at university that negatively affect your studies and you will want to avoid this.
Why does intellectual property matter
IP is proof of a person’s creativity and effort.
It shows that an author has come up with an original idea, invention, research, or art form that no one else has presented before.
And as such, the assignment of copyright is the legal way of acknowledging that individual and allows the person to earn rewards from their work.
At university, your reward may be good grades.
For researchers publishing in peer-reviewed journals, the rewards may be professional recognition and credit for their investigations.
How to use IP responsibly
Using IP responsibly at the university means using other people’s IPs without breaching any laws, regulations, or policies.
This means any time you use information, data, a quote, summary, idea, or anything else from published work you must give it the appropriate credit.
Just as you wouldn’t want someone else to use your work without giving you the credit you should always acknowledge when you have used work by other authors in your assignments.
The attribution of sources in your assignments and academic writing is achieved through proper referencing and citations.
Be careful to avoid Self-Plagiarism
You may be thinking it’s not possible to plagiarise your own work. However, any work submitted to the university should be original, correct, relevant, and accurate.
Cutting corners by copying segments from an assignment or a whole paper will reflect negatively and will likely be identified by plagiarism detectors like TurnitIn which is integrated into many VLEs.
Self-plagiarism can take many forms, and some of them are tricky. Here are a few examples:
· Copying a few catchy sentences from an old assignment.
· Copying one or more segments and reusing them in a new assignment.
· Using previously submitted designs, logos, music, or any other form of media in a new project.
· Re-suing data sets, scientific experiments, algorithms, or lines of code.
· Spinning content to write several texts based on previously submitted material.
Summary
You will use and create intellectual property during your time at university.
Understanding what intellectual property and copyright is gives your insight and perspective on the value it provides in your own research and how other people may perceive their work.
The academic risks of exploiting the creative work of another author can be substantial and can result in a cap on marks, academic sanctions, and at work failure of a module or the course.
Acknowledging copyright and the work of the original author through diligent academic practices and accurate citations and references is an essential part of succeeding in academia.
