Use eLearning Course Protection in an Age of Rampant Plagiarism

eLearning course protection

Plagiarism is rampant. A recent study of academic journal articles revealed that more than 68% of articles researchers surveyed qualified as plagiarized. If plagiarism, representing someone else’s work without acknowledgment, is a problem in academia, authors of eLearning courses have a reason for concern. The Internet makes so much content accessible. Downloading, copy-and-paste tools and many more technological tricks make a plagiarist’s work easy.

When you’ve invested research, time, effort, teamwork and – frankly – a considerable amount of resources to produce an eLearning course, the protection of that investment is a priority. While the Internet provides easy access to information, a downside to consider is that information is available for anyone to harvest.

Copyrights protect all eLearning materials, but not everyone honors copyrights. You would not want to see your instructional materials presented to a competitor’s constituency. So, to protect the content you’ve created, iSpring offers four built-in safeguards that you can use. We’ll consider each of the four and how they can protect your work.

Watermark protection

In the days of cattle wrangling, ranchers branded their cattle to protect them from thieves. Fast forward to content usage in the age of the Internet. Now, adding a digital watermark to online images is a widely used method of protecting eLearning course content.

Watermarks discourage theft because they put a clearly visible mark or logo on the content. Digital watermarks are difficult and time-consuming to remove. And, depending on its size and transparency, removal is just not worth the thwarted plagiarist’s effort. Thus, images protected by watermarks are less vulnerable to theft.

Password protection

Adding password protection to your eLearning course prevents unauthorized access to the content. Only users who can provide the designated password may view the course; this prohibits universal access. Employing a password makes it harder to copy your material. Obviously, if people cannot see your content, they cannot steal it.

Restrictions on time availability

You can place time limits on your eLearning course. This means that learners can only access the material before and/or after the dates you specify. After a presentation expires, users are unable to access the course. Limiting the time availability of a course reduces the envelope of time during which unauthorized copying of that material can occur.

Domain restrictions

Imposing domain restrictions on an eLearning course limits presentation playback of the course to only the domains specified by the course creator. You can specify a list of websites or even specific computers that may show your content. When you make that specification, your eLearning course will not even play on an unspecified local computer or on another website. This protects your content from unauthorized redistribution.

All four of these security features – watermarks, passwords, time limitations, and domain restrictions – are automatically included with your iSpring software. You can choose the features that will best serve you and your learners.

While you can battle copyright violations through the legal system, the fight is expensive, lengthy and difficult. It is far better to avoid the problem of stolen intellectual property altogether, by using the built-in protections that iSpring software provides. In an age of rampant plagiarism, that just makes sense.

Contact us with your ideas or concerns. We’re here to help you!