This past year I have had the opportunity to attend numerous conferences focused on Assessment FOR Learning and have enjoyed hearing colleagues’ viewpoints and learning from their experiences. As I listened to a presenter recently, I wondered whether the audience knew he was sharing work that had been created by others. Isaac Newton once said, “If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.” By not sharing the sources of the work, the audience is prevented from knowing the shoulders upon which the speaker’s work stands. NOT knowing means they CAN’T easily continue to learn once the session is over.

I believe it is a legal and ethical issue for our profession that we must give proper attribution to the sources of the material we are presenting. We must credit the quotes from books and articles, as well as stories, examples and material gathered from others’ presentations or experiences. You might find the following points from a chapter titled, "Legal and Ethical Use of Stories," enlightening. The chapter is from STORIES TRAINERS TELL by Mary B. Wacker and Lori L. Silverman (John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 2003):

“Storytellers own the oral version of their stories. For permission to reuse stories previously published (in print, through performance, through recording), you need to contact the original copyright holder. You need permission for reproduction, distribution, transmission, electronic reproduction, or inclusion in any publications offered for sale or used for commercial purposes. Because presenters are paid an honorarium, it is essential they be particularly careful about giving credit.”

Sometimes it’s difficult to know where something originated; we can only do our best to trace the source. I try to cite the published source on the slide where I share information. I try to get permission from published authors and from anyone whose story I want to share and identify them when I tell it. I ask people to write their story down so I can reference it more easily. Sometimes I avoid the issue by telling my own stories or time-honoured ones that are clearly in the public domain.

Every time we step in front of a group – of students, of teachers, of parents or in the community – we are obligated to act in an ethical manner. When we don’t give proper credit for the stories we tell, the examples we use, and the research we share, it leads others to question our ethics and then, our message. Assessment FOR learning is too important to risk in this way.


PS. In TRANSFORMING BARRIERS, my co-authors and I took time to share the “shoulders upon which we stand.” We chose to put them all together in an Appendix, which is available here at www.annedavies.com/PDF/17D_TB_ShouldersofGiants.pdf
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"Good stories are really a reflection of their authors. Telling them without credit is a form of cheating them of what they have created and what they have put into the story of themselves."
~ H. Delgadillo

"Giving credit for a borrowed work is an issue of morality as well as being legally and ethically correct."
~ Wacker and Silverman 2003