On using the internet in general

1. it contains
   • many pages that contain errors of fact
   • some pages that contain errors in mathematical derivations
   • countless examples of sloppily written and/or badly documented programs
   • a large number of pages that are total rubbish however attractively presented
2. copying directly from the internet into your coursework, without obtaining any necessary permission and without an appropriate citation is plagiarism, and a form of plagiarism that is quite easy to detect, as several students have found to their cost. Use the internet to learn more about your subject; not to bypass learning about your subject.

Hints on identifying a reliable web source

• Who is the author or sponsor of the page?
  Check the url. If it contains the extension .edu or .ac it is an academic and/or educational institution but this does not guarantee quality. Check if the web page is part of a course and whether it has been written by the lecturer. If not, remember that many universities allow their students to post what ever they wish on their personal web sites as long as it is not illegal, immoral or libellous. You may be reading part of the work of a student who knows even less about the subject than you do. On the page you are citing, or on a page linked to it, the authoring individual or organization should be identified, that individual's qualifications should be apparent, and other avenues of verification should be open to you. An example of a reliably documented source may be seen in my own Java library web page http://www.ee.ucl.ac.uk/~mflanaga/java. A page created by a person or an organization that does not provide this information is not a good source to cite.
• Is contact information provided?
  If no identification is given or the only identification available is so cryptic as to be meaningless, e.g. "Society for less than integrated circuits", you should suspicious of the page's reliability. If the page is sponsored by a reputable person or organization, there should be some other way to verify that reputation, such as an e-mail or postal address. (Note that a tilde [~] in the page's address usually indicates a personal home page and may require more searching for reliability.)
• What is the purpose of the page?
  Why is this information being posted - as information, as a public service, as a news source, as a research tool for academics, as an advertisement, as a personal axe to grind, or as a way to gain attention?
  Company web sites can be a very valuable source of information about their products but, obviously, will generally rate their product as superior to that of a competing company and may be less forthcoming about any adverse environmental consequences of the use of their products.
• Can you verify the information on the Web page some other way?
  For example, can you check the page's bibliography (if there is one) against your library's holdings or check the information against a source in the library? Indeed a web search can often be a useful and rapid way of identifying more conventional sources of information.

Citing a web page in your reference list

• Authors known and the date that the web page was posted known

  1.	Danecek, Jiri and Slavik, Pavel. Teaching Java at CTU Prague. 7th October 1999. Retrieved on 4th August 2004 from the World Wide Web: http://www.ulst.ac.uk/cticomp/monitor12/jdanecek.html

• Author/s not known but authoring organisation, The Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia, known

  2.	Wikipedia. Fast Fourier transform. 10 August 2004. Retrieved on 12th August 2004 from the World Wide Web: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_Fourier_transform

• Author/s not known but authoring company, Microstar Laboratories, known
  Date that the web page was posted not known

  3.	Microstar laboratories. Process Control. No date. Retrieved on 7th August 2004 from the World Wide Web: http://www.mstarlabs.com/adwds/adpid02.html

Using another's program

• Follow the conditions of use strictly. Typical conditions of use may be seen at the top of any of my own Java library programs, e.g. Db.java, or any Sun Java example program, e.g. Animator.java. This usually involves including an acknowledgement (see below) and/or retaining the copyright or permission to use paragraph in your copy. They almost always exclude copying for commercial use.
• Email or write to the author/s thanking them for the use of the program and give a very brief description of your use of the program.
• Additionally
  • If you are including the copied program as part of your own larger program, e.g. just as one class in several in a Java application:
    • include an acknowledgement in the documentation (comment) lines at the top of the full listing. This should be there even if not requested by the original author/s. It should either take the form required by the original authors or, if this not provided, give details of the original source (see Citing the Web above for the correct method of citing a web source);
    • include a similar acknowledgement in the documentation lines at the top of the listing of copied program itself. This should be there even if not requested by the original author/s;
    • the above acknowledgements and citations should be mirrored in any documentation, additional to that within the source code, describing the program.
  • If you are including a copied method or procedure as part of your own program:
    • include an acknowledgement in the documentation (comment) lines at the top of the full listing. This should be there even if not requested by the original author/s. It should either take the form required by the original authors or, if this not provided, give details of the original source (see Citing the Web above for the correct method of citing a web source).
    • identify and acknowledge the copied method in the comment line/s immediately above the method;
    • similar acknowledgements should be included if the copied method has been used as the basis of a very similar method, e.g. conversion from C to Java. An example of the documentation and acknowledgement of this type can be seen in my program FourierTransform.java;
    • the above acknowledgements and citations should be mirrored in any documentation, additional to that within the source code, describing the program.
  • If using the copied program as a stand alone program:
    • ensure that the originators conditions of use are met and correctly documented and referenced;
    • ensure that it is clear in any relevant coursework or project report that this is not your own program and acknowledge and cite the source.

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