Information Ethics... Follow the Rules in ZU Student Code

Students are expected to act in an appropriate, fair, honest and respectful way in their university courses and activities. See the ZU Code of Academic Conduct, which is printed in the ZU Student Handbook.

Students are responsible for using information in an ethical manner. This means that students must:

• do their own research and writing.
• cite information used from other sources in order to acknowledge ideas and words coming from the author.
• place quotation marks around direct quotes and provide in-text citations.
• cite the source for facts and statistics used to support statements.

What about Downloading Media?

Downloading and sharing copyrighted media without the consent of the copyright owner is a serious issue. Copyrighted media includes:

• computer files
• software programs
• movies
• games
• music

Using file sharing programs, or making a computer's hard drive available to others, is a violation UAE and international copyright laws, and subject to large fines. Newspapers often report on police raids on shops selling illegal copies of CDs in the UAE.

What you CAN do to follow the law and practice ethical behavior:

• You can copy music that you have legally purchased to MP3s or to your Ipod or mini disc so that you have them in a digital format.
• You can burn your own "mix" CD from your own CD collection, as long as you keep that mix CD in your possession. This also applies to books, movies, games, or any other copyrighted material that you may already own.
• A general rule: You may usually make one copy of 10% of something for educational use. You may not make multiple copies of an entire item of something without permission from the copyright holder, author or publisher. Copyright law is complex, and there are no exact rules. Be careful to respect the rights of others.