Information has Value
“If you create incredible value and information for others that can change their lives - and you always stay focused on that service - the financial success will follow.” Brendon Burchard
Not all information is free, some information has economic value. Information is a commodity being produced, packaged and distributed. Information creators who publish their work freely on the internet should be aware that others may use that information to benefit financially from it. There are both legal and ethical aspects to the threshold concept Information has Value. ). Failure to value your own IP often leads to the disregard of the intellectual property rights of others. Information possesses several dimensions of value, including: as a commodity, as a means of education, as a means to influence, and as a means of negotiating & understanding the world (ACRL, 2015). The value of information is manifested in various contexts, including publishing practices, information access, the commodification of personal information (research data), and intellectual property laws.
Knowledge Practices
Learners who are developing their information literate abilities do the following:- Give credit to the original ideas of others through proper attribution and citation
- Understand that intellectual property is a legal and social construct that varies by culture
- Articulate the purpose and distinguishing characteristics of copyright, fair use, open access, and the public domain Understand how and why some individuals or groups of individuals may be underrepresented or systematically marginalized within the systems that produce and disseminate information
- Recognize issues of access or lack of access to information sources
- Decide where and how their information is published
- Understand how the commodification of their personal information and online interactions affects the information they receive and the information they produce or disseminate online
- Make informed choices regarding their online actions in full awareness of issues related to privacy and the commodification of personal information
- formulate questions for research based on information gaps or re-examination of existing, possibly conflicting, information;
- determine an appropriate scope of investigation;
- deal with complex research by breaking complex questions into simple ones,
- limiting the scope of investigation, conducting a series of investigations, and performing subsequent steps;
- use a variety of research methods, based on need, circumstance, and type of inquiry
- employ critical skills to evaluate information;
- effectively resolve conflicting information;
- monitor gathered information and assess for gaps or weaknesses;
- organize information in meaningful ways
- synthesize ideas gathered from multiple sources;
- draw reasonable conclusions based on the analysis and interpretation of information;
- develop research heuristics;
- develop directions for future investigations;
- use research appropriately to make decisions and take action; and
- manage information effectively. (ACRL Framework for IL for HE draft 2014)
Dispositions
Learners who are developing their information literate abilities do the following:
- Respect the original ideas of others
- Value the skills, time, and effort needed to produce knowledge
- See themselves as contributors to the information marketplace rather than only consumers of it
- Are inclined to examine their own information privilege
Types of information Licenses
Public Domain 
“The term “public domain” refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it. An important wrinkle to understand about public domain material is that, while each work belongs to the public, collections of public domain works may be protected by copyright. If, for example, someone has collected public domain images in a book or on a website, the collection as a whole may be protectible even though individual images are not. You are free to copy and use individual images but copying and distributing the complete collection may infringe what is known as the “collective works” copyright. Collections of public domain material will be protected if the person who created it has used creativity in the choices and organization of the public domain material. This usually involves some unique selection process, for example, a poetry scholar compiling a book . There are four common ways that works arrive in the public domain:the copyright has expiredthe copyright owner failed to follow copyright renewal rulesthe copyright owner deliberately places it in the public domain, known as “dedication,” or copyright law does not protect this type of work” - See more at: http://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/#sthash.kLirQ43N.dpuf
Open Access 
“Open Access (OA) stands for unrestricted access and unrestricted reuse. Here’s why that matters.
Most publishers own the rights to the articles in their journals. Anyone who wants to read the articles must pay to access them. Anyone who wants to use the articles in any way must obtain permission from the publisher and is often required to pay an additional fee. Although many researchers can access the journals they need via their institution and think that their access is free, in reality it is not. The institution has often been involved in lengthy negotiations around the price of their site license and re-use of this content is limited. Paying for access to content makes sense in the world of print publishing, where providing content to each new reader requires the production of an additional copy, but online it makes much less sense to charge for content when it is possible to provide access to all readers anywhere in the world.” Available from: https://www.plos.org/open-access/
Fair Dealing
“Fair dealing provisions cover copying for (personal) research or study, criticism or review, reporting the news, parody and satire, and purposes related to judicial proceedings. There is no payment for fair dealing copying Fair dealing for personal research or study permits the copying of: the whole or part of an article in a periodical more than one article in the same edition of a periodical where the articles are required for the same research or course of study. a 'reasonable portion' of a published literary, dramatic or musical work. Any reproduction of greater amounts, or reproductions of artistic or audiovisual works, must take the following criteria into account when determining whether the dealing is 'fair': the purpose of the dealing for example, copying in a study environment will be more likely to be fair than copying to use the item commercially. The nature of the work, it may be less fair to copy a work with a high degree of skill than it would to copy one based on less skill. The possibility of obtaining the work within a reasonable time at an ordinary commercial price ,are you copying the work because you don't want to buy it, even though it is readily available at the standard price? The effect of the dealing on the potential market for, or value of, the work, for example, making one copy for your personal use is more likely to be a fair use than making a number of copies. In a case where part only of the work or adaptation is copied, the amount and substantiality of the part copied taken in relation to the whole work or adaptation, it would be considered less fair to copy a large or important part of the work than it would to copy a small or unimportant part.” Available [Online ]: http://scu.edu.au/copyright/index.php/9
Creative Commons
“The idea of universal access to research, education, and culture is made possible by the Internet, but our legal and social systems don’t always allow that idea to be realized. Copyright was created long before the emergence of the Internet, and can make it hard to legally perform actions we take for granted on the network: copy, paste, edit source, and post to the Web. The default setting of copyright law requires all of these actions to have explicit permission, granted in advance, whether you’re an artist, teacher, scientist, librarian, policymaker, or just a regular user. To achieve the vision of universal access, Creative Commons provide a free, public, and standardized infrastructure that creates a balance between the reality of the Internet and the reality of copyright laws.” Creative Commons at: http://creativecommons.org/about
Teaching Scenario
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Learning Outcomes
- Students should be able recognize the intellectual value of information as they use or present information in written, oral, or visual forms by citing and acknowledging the original source.
- Students should be able to recognise the moral obligation of citing sources correctly
- Students should be able to distinguish between the various limitations to copyright, e.g. Open Access Vs. Copyright licensed material.
Activities
1. Using the internet search for plagiarism in the music industry. Explain the moral and legal consequences of copying songs or music without permission from the copyright holder and how piracy (duplicating and selling media without permission) affect artists (Information creators).
2. Follow the links: http://web.uct.ac.za/depts/english/downloads/DEPARTMENT%20OF%20ENGLISH%20PLAGIARISM%20DECLARATION%20FORM.pdf. And the UWC referencing guide http://libguides.uwc.ac.za/referencing and discuss why you should always use correct referencing and citation. What could be the consequences of not following the guidelines? Discuss.
3. Find 3 articles relating to Open Access, Creative Commons and Fair Deal trading. Discuss and illustrate the differences between the 3. Make a table to illustrate findings.
Relationship between Knowledge Practice and activity
1. By having an understanding of Intellectual Property students will learn to respect the original ideas of others
2. By learning the guidelines of referencing and the legal obligation to cite works used properly, students will be able to give credit to the original ideas of others through proper attribution and citation
3. By learning about the different limitations on access students will be able to recognize issues of access or lack of access to information sources and be able to articulate the purpose and distinguishing characteristics of copyright, fair use, open access, and the public domain
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