VirtualOT

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Australia
I am an Australian occupational therapist, educator and researcher. I have worked as an OT in mental health, vocational rehabilitation and a private surgical hospital. I am passionate using online technology to enhance the knowledge and growth of the occupational therapy profession. In my PhD research I am looking at the role of online technologies in information management and knowledge transfer in occupational therapy. Views expressed and stories shared on this blog are my opinion and do not represent views of my employer or professional registration body.

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Sharing resources: Are we just giving away our knowledge?

Some people who are new to the online environment are concerned that others may use their content and not cite them, so they simply refuse to put any information online, keeping all their knowledge in the formal literature... inaccessible to the masses.

The fear of having your work stolen is real and it happens! Many people either don't know how to cite or maybe they don't want to cite (and in fact are stealing your work to pass it off as their own). Either way, that is plagiarism and should not happen!

So a dilemma exists for many people who want to use their wiki or their blog to share their small project, or their ideas or maybe even the results of a large study... they may not get any "glory"

This is how I view the dilemma (today) about what to put online and what to try to publish through the "formal channels"...
  1. Primarily my role is to find and make sense of information and translate this for use by others
  2. It is not about "glory"... even though I love a bit of a spotlight :-)
  3. Sharing my work through journal publications is one way to get new information to the community andpublishing in journals and books is still the most accepted form of currency for my employer to understand that I am contributing
  4. Web 2.0 tools such as wikis and blogs and podcasts etc are excellent tools for quick dissemination of information, and it is a good idea to promote your published material there for people who don't have ready access to databases and journals etc
Thinking "out loud" about this dilemma further maybe there is a time and a place to withhold information that I want to publish, but should really go through the formal channels of publication.

Question to the ether... "in the professional arena what do you withhold from your blog or wiki and why"

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