This week we were introduced to open access articles and reviews.   I learned that the idea behind such websites is to allow the masses to learn and share their knowledge with the world.   We also learned that unlike traditional copyright practices these open access websites allow the masses to use the information they like as long as they are given credit and are not misused or misinterpreted. I found this to be very interesting since in the past it seemed as if everyone was always ready to sue each other for using information without their consent. 

I think that knowing that there is open access articles that can be accessed freely might change the way I generally look for information, I probably won’t be relying as much on google, Bing and even Wikipedia when looking for free scholarly articles and information.  But I do have to say that I really loved using the other Journal databases that we used during the last few weeks, it just seems as if we took a step back when we used open access websites.  I found it incredibly difficult to narrow down my subject and find articles that I would be able to use for my research.  But I do understand that open access websites are very important as they promote and encourage freedom of knowledge.

The aspect of academic plagiarism that still seems a bit unclear would be, how the universities might go about deciding if certain information can be considered commonly known versus plagiarized.  At what point exactly is it considered commonly known, in today’s age of technology I think that it can become very difficult to determine this especially with all the free information available to us.  I personally had an issue with this last session because I found myself attempting to look for a resource to explain my knowledge of Shakespeare.