Tips and Guidelines On How to Cultivate Your Online Persona(Digital Citizenship)

1. 1. Understand What the First Amendment Means: You posses the right to 'freedom of speech', however, various social media platforms have ways of censoring hate speech, misinformation and harassing message that others place into 'cyber space'. Just because you can say it ; doesn't mean you should.

1.1. Cyber bullying : "Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place over digital devices like cell phones, computers, and tablets. Cyberbullying can occur through SMS, Text, and apps, or online in social media, forums, or gaming where people can view, participate in, or share content. Cyberbullying includes sending, posting, or sharing negative, harmful, false, or mean content about someone else (stopbullying.gov) ".

2. 2. Understand What 'Verified Sources' Means: Verified sources is typically a Public Relations term which means you have credible sources and information that you can freely pass along in print or on social media. Wiki pedia and parody sites like The Babylon Bee are not reliable websites.

2.1. Please note that just because you see it online, does not mean the information you are reading is factual. Sites such as CNN.com, Aol.com, Fox News. com and other similar sites produce factual information as those bloggers, writers and reporters have an obligation to check their stories and where they get their information from. It is irresponsible to repost any false information on social media sites and some false information can be considered slanderous and libelous and can laid in you in a court of law!

3. 3.Please note that just because you see it online, does not mean the information you are reading is factual. Sites such as CNN.com, Aol.com, Fox News. com and other similar sites produce factual information as those bloggers, writers and reporters have an obligation to check their stories and where they get their information from. It is irresponsible to repost any false information on social media sites and some false information can be considered slanderous and libelous and can laid in you in a court of law!

3.1. Plagiarism : " plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward(https://www.plagiarism.org/article/what-is-plagiarism)".

3.1.1. Cheating has a variety of meanings. According to dictionary .com, cheating is "to defraud; swindle [and]to deceive; influence by fraud(https://www.dictionary.com/browse/cheating)". Think about it this way : if it is illegal to cheat on your taxes, it more than likely illegal to cheat within educational institutions, place of employment, and even online! You can be sued for plagiarizing or stealing someone else's creative material(which is another form of cheating aka fraud).

4. 4. What Is A True Digital Citizen? : "a person who develops the skills and knowledge to effectively use the Internet and other digital technology, especially in order to participate responsibly in social and civic activities(https://www.dictionary.com/browse/digital-citizen)."

5. 5.What is Information Technology Fluency?: In order to become a proficient digital citizen, you must be familiar with how to use technology and social media platforms for good, helpful and informative purposes. Information Technology Fluency is "understanding and practice of working with information, including the ability to find, retrieve, store, filter and sort through, interpret and analyze (to identify bias and inaccuracy), manage, and use information to answer questions and develop new ones(http://tutorials.istudy.psu.edu/techfluency/techfluency2.html)".

5.1. Fair Use Doctrine : "Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances (https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/more-info.html)". In order to view the ins and outs of the Fair Use Doctrine, please view Section 107 of the Copyright Act at copyright.gov.

6. Copyright and Public Domain " refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws. The public owns these works, not an individual author or artist. Anyone can use a public domain work without obtaining permission, but no one can ever own it. (Welcome to the Public Domain , https://fairuse.stanford.edu/https://fairuse.stanford.edu/) " .Welcome to the Public Domain , https://fairuse.stanford.edu/https://fairuse.stanford.edu/) " .

6.1. An important wrinkle to understand about public domain material is that, while each work belongs to the public, collections of public domain works may be protected by copyright (Welcome to the Public Domain , https://fairuse.stanford.edu/https://fairuse.stanford.edu/) " .

7. What Is 'Creative Commons'? : " The Creative Commons copyright licenses and tools forge a balance inside the traditional “all rights reserved” setting that copyright law creates. Our tools give everyone from individual creators to large companies and institutions a simple, standardized way to grant copyright permissions to their creative work. The combination of our tools and our users is a vast and growing digital commons, a pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law(creativecommons. org) ".