 Online security, safety, and ethics

 Internet threats
 Protecting reputations online
 Copyright
 Contextualized online search and research skills
 If you create something---an idea, an invention,a form
of literary work, or a research, you have the right as to
how it should be used by others. This is called
intellectual property.
 In other words, the copyright law includes your rights
over your work, and anyone who uses it without your
consent is punishable by law.
 Try grabbing any book then browse its first few pages
and you will find a page with a disclaimer with the
words: “No part of this book may be copied,
reproduced…”That is a copyright page.
 As a responsible user of the Internet, you have to
consider that not everything out there is free for you
to use.
 Just like your own, contents that you see from websites
have their respective copyrights.
 There are several instances where employees or
business owners face copyright infringement and are
sentenced to a huge fine due to reckless copying of
materials.
Here are some tips that could help you avoid copyright
infringement:
 Understand. Copyright protects literary works,
photographs, paintings, drawings, films, music (and lyrics),
choreography, and sculptures, but it generally does NOT
protect underlying ideas and facts. This means that you can
express something using your own words, but you should
give credit to the source.
 Be responsible. Even if a material does not say that it is
copyrighted, it is not a valid defense against copyright. Be
responsible enough to know if something has a copyright.
Here are some tips that could help you avoid copyright
infringement: (cont.)
 Be creative. Ask yourself whether what you are making
is something that came from you or something made
from somebody else’s creativity. It is important to add
your own creative genius in everything that will be
credited to you.
Here are some tips that could help you avoid copyright
infringement: (cont.)
 Know the law. There are some limitations to copyright
laws. For instance in the Philippines, copyrights only last a
lifetime (of the author) plus 50 years. There are also
provisions for “fair use” which mean that an intellectual
property may be used without a consent as long as it is
used in commentaries, criticisms, search engines, parodies,
news reports, research, library archiving, teaching, and
education. If you have doubts that what you are doing does
not fall under the policy of fair use, seek permission first.
 Have you ever searched the Internet certain
information where the search engine returned a
different result? For example, if you were to search for
“The Madonna” as the representation of Mary in the
form of an art, you would probably use the keyword
“Madonna” to search for it on the net. But if you use
that same keyword nowadays, you are more likely to
stumble upon “Madonna”, the music artist instead.
And if you used “The Madonna” to search for “The
Madonna” in the first place, you will be directed in the
right place.
The information that we need is more likely already in
the Internet. It is just a matter of how to look for it and
how to use information from the most credible source.
Here are some tips in conducting online research:
 Have a question in mind. Focus on a question you
want answered. If it is a series of questions, start with
one. Never search everything on one go.
 Narrow it down. Search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo
use several filters to determine the most appropriate result
for you.
 These search engines use your previous search history and
your geographical location, and send you the result which
is the most related to you.
 Try to search “weather” and most search engines would
return the weather conditions of where you are. But if all
of these filters fail, you should remember to narrow down
what you are searching for.
 For example, if you were to look for Tom Sawyer, the animation series,
you would better use the keywords “Tom Sawyer animation” rather than
just “Tom Sawyer”. Another examples is if you were to look for science
research experiments, it would be better to include what branch of
science it is what type of study it is.
 Advanced Search. The best way to filter information
you get from search engines is by using the advanced
search. This will allow you to filter out information you
do not need.
◦ In Google, simply search a world like you would normally do,
then click the advanced search option on the options button
located at the right corner of the page.
 Look for a credible source. Some wikis, though filled
with updated information, are not a credible source.
This is due to the fact that anyone can edit its content.
When using wikis, check out the link of the cited text
(indicated by superscript number) to be navigated to
the footnote where the list of source is located. Click
the source of the information and see if it is credible.
 The more credible sources are scientific journals, established
news and magazine websites, online encyclopedias, and
scholarly databases.
 You can also check the URL of a website if it ends with a .org,
.gov, and .edu. A website that ends with .com is intended to be
a commercial websites and may be slanted to promoting a
product or service. You should consider the intent of the
information on the web page. On most cases, .edu websites are
best for research as government and organization websites may
have a tendency to make information favorable for them.
 Unfortunately, not all websites follow the standards in domain
name conventions. Some sites use the suffixes like .com loosely;
some sites are not credible even though they use a .edu suffix.
 Another tip to validate if the information is correct is to have
multiple sources of information is reliable or not.
 Give credit. If you are going to use the information
from a source for educational purposes, give credit to
the original author of the page or information. To
properly cite a reference, you may use the format
below:
Name of the person or organization (the author of the information). Title of the home page in italics
(title is shown in title bar but is sometimes missing or unrelated). URL. Date last seen.

Example:
Lapiz, Adrian Harold L. “Oleander’s Fun Facts about Bananas”.
http://oleander.penz.com/random/bananalove.htm. Viewed on September 7, 2015.

“According: What you should know”. Jargon Online Network.

http://www.jargononline.com/accounting101.html. Viewed on April 13, 2015.