How to resolve course issues when a resource is pulled for plagiarism?
Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament: John has been pulled from the store "due to plagiarism issues."
This affects at least three Mobile Ed courses which link to that resource, one of which makes heavy use of it (40 links, third most-linked resource). For that particular course, those links represent 6% of its readings.
This is not the first time that this situation has occurred, where (existing/future) customers are left with a course which is now missing content, yet is still sold at its old regular price.
While I do realize that we have not lost any portion of the video presentation, a course's readings do make up a substantial educational portion of the course.
I have always felt that Mobile Ed courses offer great value, but hate to see a course's value diminish due to unfortunate issues such as plagiarism. Will FL have any plans to address/resolve this issue of customers not being able to read what the instructor had originally linked to, as part of the course material?
Thanks for any consideration!
Thanks to FL for including Carta and a Hebrew audio bible in Logos 9!
Comments
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You raise an important and difficult issue, as you know. It might help to let others know which courses you've found are affected.
The right course of events would be to stop selling those courses immediately (or provide notification of the problems they are aware of), revise the course content to use resources that can currently be obtained, and then release new course material to those who already own the courses, and re-offer the courses for sale.
In the specific case mentioned, it might be possible to find relevant discussions in Carson's Pillar commentary as suitable replacements. I don't have the courses you must be thinking about, so don't know how feasible that would be.
FL should definitely not ignore the MEd situation now that it is fully aware of the situation with the commentary.
What a sad state of affairs.
Pastor, North Park Baptist Church
Bridgeport, CT USA
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The course that uses the Baker commentary 40 times is Ben Witherington's NT221 The Wisdom of John: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on Johannine Literature. I'm going to go ahead and replace the Baker links with links to Carson's Pillar commentary in this course. We are actually in the process of updating NT221 to include an Activities resource, so the timing works out as well as it can for this.
I'm happy to hear that you find the links to additional resources in Mobile Ed courses to be so valuable. I think they are a great value as well, but they can occasionally be a source of frustration (both for us and for customers) when a publisher makes a decision to stop selling a book. Resources can and have been retired/pulled for a variety of reasons (plagiarism, the publisher released a new edition, etc.). We may not be able to update every link to a retired resource in every Mobile Ed course, but we'll do our best to keep them pointing to resources that continue to be available, especially when a course makes heavy use of a resource that is no longer available.
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Miles Custis said:
I'm going to go ahead and replace the Baker links with links to Carson's Pillar commentary in this course.
Miles, does the author of the course pick which resources get linked to, when the course is originally made, or does FL choose?
Who says Carson links are the right ones here? Do you ''reask'' the course author?
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scooter said:
Miles, does the author of the course pick which resources get linked to, when the course is originally made, or does FL choose?
Who says Carson links are the right ones here? Do you ''reask'' the course author?
We ask our speakers provide a bibliography, but ultimately the reading links are added by the Mobile Ed Contributing Editors. We prioritize books by the speaker that relate to the course first and other books that the speaker recommends in their bibliography second.
In this case, Carson's commentary is a good choice to replace the Baker links because it was the book that was used "without sufficient attribution" in the Baker commentary according to Baker Academic's statement. See this thread for more information and a link to Baker's statement: https://community.logos.com/forums/t/153088.aspx.
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Miles Custis said:
In this case, Carson's commentary is a good choice to replace the Baker links...
Carson's commentary on John is absolutely excellent. I don't have the mobile ed course, but I'm preaching through John and have found his and Morris's (NICNT) to be the most helpful.
Help links: WIKI; Logos 6 FAQ. (Phil. 2:14, NIV)
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But then, some users might own the previous resources that have been pulled, and not the new ones. So updating the bibliography would render the course less useful/usable to them.
So this is not as easy and straightforward as it seems on the first sight.
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Jan Krohn said:
But then, some users might own the previous resources that have been pulled, and not the new ones. So updating the bibliography would render the course less useful/usable to them.
So this is not as easy and straightforward as it seems on the first sight.
Yep, Jan is right. This resource is probably still very useful for its owners - and they shouldn't be required to buy another resource just because BECNT can no longer be obtained electronically (I now had to order a paper-copy of Koestenberger's BECNT John - as I am not in a position to write academic papers citing such resources, I would not really be impacted by those improper citations, but I am impacted by the fact that the resource has been pulled out of electronic distribution).
Have joy in the Lord!
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Jan Krohn said:
But then, some users might own the previous resources that have been pulled, and not the new ones. So updating the bibliography would render the course less useful/usable to them.
So this is not as easy and straightforward as it seems on the first sight.
This is definitely a consideration too. If a resource is pulled for plagiarism issues, then we will remove and replace the links to that resource. While this may make the course less useful to users who own that particular resource, I don't feel like it would be academically responsible to point to a resource that a publisher has pulled for this reason. If a resource is pulled for another reason we would likely keep the links to it in while adding additional links.
For an example, BI201 The Story of the Bible has links to both the first and second editions of The Drama of Scripture because the second edition was released after the the course had been released. People can no longer purchase the first edition of The Drama of Scripture but we didn't remove the links because we didn't want people who own the first edition to feel like they had to buy the second.
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Miles Custis said:
If a resource is pulled for plagiarism issues, then we will remove and replace the links to that resource. While this may make the course less useful to users who own that particular resource, I don't feel like it would be academically responsible to point to a resource that a publisher has pulled for this reason. If a resource is pulled for another reason we would likely keep the links to it in while adding additional links.
Thanks very much, Miles. I'm grateful that FL is able to resolve issues like this!
Thanks to FL for including Carta and a Hebrew audio bible in Logos 9!
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I have updated the notes files and spreadsheet of resources linked in NT221 in the course's Faithlife group. The course update (including updated links and an Activities resource) will be released soon.
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Does our copy of the notes file update automatically?
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I don't think it does because if you have made any changes to your copy, then they would be lost. You'll have to download the updated version.
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Miles Custis said:
I have updated the notes files and spreadsheet of resources linked in NT221 in the course's Faithlife group.
It is unlikely that the 40 links to BECNT all contained plagiarized material. Since I own both resources, can we have a homogenized version? {with a tip of the hat to Milkman [:P]}
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Jack Caviness said:
It is unlikely that the 40 links to BECNT all contained plagiarized material.
Probably not, but I don't really know how prevalent the issues were in the commentary. If I were teaching a course I wouldn't assign the commentary or list it in a bibliography of recommended resources, so I think it's appropriate to completely remove it from the course. You can still read the commentary along with the course, but the course won't point to specific sections in the reading links (after the update is released).
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I think one way to solve this would be to add category to the explore section of the courses.
Right now each course has a Suggested Reading and See Also section. I think it would be good to add a section called- Links Removed from Original Release of Course. Have a statement as a part of the front matter of the course explaining why some links were removed or even a link to the discussion. This way those who owe the book and the course before the plagiarism issues arose would have access to them and they can compare and contrast with the new links.
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Kenneth Neighoff said:
I think one way to solve this would be to add category to the explore section of the courses.
Right now each course has a Suggested Reading and See Also section. I think it would be good to add a section called- Links Removed from Original Release of Course. Have a statement as a part of the front matter of the course explaining why some links were removed or even a link to the discussion. This way those who owe the book and the course before the plagiarism issues arose would have access to them and they can compare and contrast with the new links.
This is an eminently sensible suggestion.
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Kenneth Neighoff said:
I think one way to solve this would be to add category to the explore section of the courses.
Right now each course has a Suggested Reading and See Also section. I think it would be good to add a section called- Links Removed from Original Release of Course. Have a statement as a part of the front matter of the course explaining why some links were removed or even a link to the discussion. This way those who owe the book and the course before the plagiarism issues arose would have access to them and they can compare and contrast with the new links.
I agree that this is a superb suggestion
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Kenneth Neighoff said:
I think one way to solve this would be to add category to the explore section of the courses.
Right now each course has a Suggested Reading and See Also section. I think it would be good to add a section called- Links Removed from Original Release of Course. Have a statement as a part of the front matter of the course explaining why some links were removed or even a link to the discussion. This way those who owe the book and the course before the plagiarism issues arose would have access to them and they can compare and contrast with the new links.
Agree that this is the way forward
Meanwhile, Jesus kept on growing wiser and more mature, and in favor with God and his fellow man.
International Standard Version. (2011). (Lk 2:52). Yorba Linda, CA: ISV Foundation.
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It would also be good to include links to multiple possible resources when the same content can be found in more than just one resource (for example, new editions, same content in Loeb / Perseus, generally multiple editions available in Logos such as Pilgrim's Progress, Institutes of the Christian Religion etc.)
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