Sunday, 15 April 2012

SCP2012.7

Week 10


Hi guys, after a bit of a break, I’m back for another post.  In this week’s SCP lecture, Keith raised some interesting points.  I would like to re-hash some of these points and build on them as well.

Technology has come a long way in a relatively short space of time.  Compared to a decade ago, the internet is so readily available these days.  The introduction of so many mobile devices, which are capable of accessing online material combined with the ever increasing wireless internet hotspots, means global connectivity is more advanced than ever.

As Keith touched on in his lecture, we (as students) can produce work and have it displayed around the world within minutes.  We don’t require IT specialists anymore, we can do this ourselves.  This is evident with the recently completed SCP presentations.  Thanks to various websites (youtube, slideshare, prezi and wikiversity) our presentations for this unit can be witnessed anywhere in the world.  In fact Keith has compiled a wikiversity page to house everyone’s presentations, making it even easier to view people’s work.  This can be viewed here.

The world is becoming closer than ever through technological advancements, meaning work and study can be shared/stolen so much easier.  This situation poses the question, do copyright/ plagiarism laws need to be tighter to ensure the originality of people’s work?  Or would it be better to relax the laws and allow people to openly use other people’s work?  I think both sides of the argument have valid points.   

As we’re all aware, the university plagiarism laws are quite strict.  Although a slight relaxation of these laws could lead to a host of problems, it would also allow people to work together much more freely with people anywhere in the world to potentially create a higher quality of work.  As mentioned by Keith, Wikipedia is becoming a more reputable source.  It is constantly being updated and monitored to ensure the information is correct and reliable.  Maybe more Wikipedia type webpages will be the way of the future.  Places where anyone can post information and share their knowledge.  Of course, policing the validity of the info could be the main issue, however this is contrasted with the policing of plagiarism laws, which is likely to become harder in this growing global network.      

I would like to leave a final thought for anyone who may wish to comment.  Will it one day be possible to learn everything you need to know in a certain field, solely using the internet?  Ie. Will the internet allow us to acquire a university degree (or equivalent) without attending campus or paying the tuition fees?

Any thoughts are welcome, thank you!

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