When talking about ethics of information, my colleague Ken Fujiuchi (See post below) reminded me of an interesting example to use when discussing the dangers of digitization: “The Case of the Disappearing Article.” (Library Journal, 4/15/2004)
On the flip side of the “missing article”, we have the fraudulent articles by journalist Stephen Glass (see “Shattered Glass” assignment post) which remain in the EBSCO databases (despite the fact that they are known to contain false reporting). I think that using both of these examples could really open up some interesting classroom dialogue. I’ve found that most students will argue that the online Glass articles should be removed from the databases– until I mention the missing Time article and pose different scenarios. Ken has his students find the print version of Time and evaluate it against the online version, which can also be a useful tool in pointing out just how easy it is to change history.
Of course, this can also be a great time to laugh about Stephen Colbert’s report on “Wikiality.”
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/72347/july-31-2006/the-word—wikiality
-LF
