Is this blog rigorous enough?

Kathleen Gray on WEB 2.0 and authorship and academic integrity

http://ezproxy.cqu.edu.au/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2008.03.001

This paper talks about appropriately referencing web 2.0 content. Yes, there is more and more of that content, but surely there are referencing guides out to cope with that? I know that guides do tend to focus on rigorous academic material, but it is updated often (eg APA and Harvard) and don’t seem to be struggling too much.

What possibly is missing from the referencing is a discussion about the integrity and qualifications of the author. They talk about how hard it is to say whether the material has come from a particular source, but that alone is not what the material should be judged on. If a well renowned researcher is commenting in a blog, it is not the fact that it is in a blog that is the issue, it is the fact that you can rely on the authors credibility. It is a mix of where it comes from and who is the author.

Plagiarism. Now there is an interesting statement they make: “is a symptom of an emerging mode of reading and writing” (p113). I guess this is saying that it is easier than ever for students to copy and paste chunks of text and that a whole lot more is accessible. Perhaps it is also a symptom of lectures giving the students a whole lot more work?? In the past, perhaps the students would have to read and review an article for a lecture. Now, due to so much being available, the lectures just link to a whole heap of relevant articles and set that for the students each week. It is easier to pull material together, students are expected to synthesise a large number of papers and the student’s time is just getting shorter and shorter for composing papers. Student are under pressure.

Another point in this paper is that web authoring tends to be discussive rather than objective. So be it. In any assignment, the context of the material should be taken into consideration and discussed. Academic assignments are far from reciting facts with dutiful references after them backing up the facts. Assignments should be just as discussive and evaluative. Even scientific papers need to evaluate the subjective nature of the authors and the context. This should happen whether it is a peer reviewed, level A journal article, or Stephen Hawking’s blog.