In today’s digital environment it is necessary to properly acknowledge when you use someone else’s work within your own creations. You need to properly cite text and images that you use if they are not your own original creation. To cite something just means to identify and acknowledge the original creator.
Additional information about copyright and Creative Commons guidelines is available on EmTechWIKI.
Whenever you use another person’s work, you need to provide proper attribution to recognize the original author. This is true when reusing items that are licensed under Creative Commons and if an item is copywritten, even if no copyright symbol is present.
Even when summarizing or paraphrasing information, it is still necessary to properly cite the original creator. Provide the name of the original author and if available, provide a link to the site where you found the original text or image.
When quoting words directly from another source you should put the words inside quotation marks. If the source was found online, include a link to the original webpage where the words are from. Also include the name of the original author or the name of the website where you found the information. When an item is under a Creative Commons license, it is important to also identify the specific Creative Commons license the work is under.
EmTechWIKI also includes the Open Attribution Builder developed by the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges that helps to create a proper acknowledgment to include on your site. Just fill out a simple form and then the app automatically generates the attribution information for you that you can then copy and paste onto your webpage.
If an ePortfolio is found to have any text or images that are not the portfolio creator’s original work and proper attribution is not provided, any EmTech ePortfolio badge that has been issued may be revoked.