Hi!
I am a full-time nursing student. In my class, we are required to to post our homework responses to an online forum twice a week. The online forum is open to all students in the class, so everyone has access to each other’s work. I take great pride in my work and am always eager to see feedback from my instructor. As I logged into the forum the other day to see if there was any feedback from my instructor, I noticed that a classmate had copied and pasted my assignment word for word. The classmate in question did change the font and bolded the subtitles, but all the words were mine. I emailed my instructor to see what could be done. She responded by telling me that this was not plagiarism because the student work isn't copyrighted. This doesn’t sound or feel right.
Can you help?
CR
Hi CR,
Thank you for your email and inquiry! Any work that you or anyone else authors is copyrighted. That said, however, the online forum that you posted to may have a "terms of service" or "user agreement" that you signed off on to use the system that may have abdicated your rights to your work posted to that forum. I'd suggest that you take a look at the "user agreement" for the system. If it turns out that the system does NOT ask you to release your copyrights, then you might consider discussing your issue with someone in student affairs or the office of academic integrity (if you have one).
Hope this helps!
Best,
Jason Chu