Week Four Assignment

University of Illinois at Springfield
PAC 442 Section B
Spring 2008
Prof. Burks Oakley II

Week Four Assignment - Draft

[This will be posted to a new discussion forum in Blackboard on Monday, 4 February 2008]

Subject: Week Four Discussion Assignment -- Please read in detail

Greetings! This week, you were asked to read two reports from the Pew Internet Project (PIP) that deal with Intellectual Property and the Internet:

Your assignment for the "student-led discussion" this week is to moderate your own threaded discussion on a topic covered in any of these reports. Select a topic, pose your question related to this topic (no later than Wednesday evening), and moderate the ensuing discussion. In moderating your own discussion, I assume that you will respond to most, if not all, students who post a meaningful message in your threaded discussion.

IMPORTANT: The best questions are those that are most related to the topics in the Pew studies, and for which the answers require analysis and synthesis, not just stating an opinion. For example, don't just ask "Have you ever downloaded music from the web?" Instead, you could ask "What strategies have been particularly effective in curbing the illegal downloading of music from the web?" Writing a good discussion question requires careful thought!

Always remember the Two Cardinal Rules that apply to our online discussions.

Also remember that you should participate in at least 3 other "student-led discussions" every week. In your responses, you should try to bring in data from the Pew Internet Reports, in addition to other reference material from the web. Remember that the best responses will promote additional discussion.

What would be a good question for this week? The basic topic this week is intellectual property in the digital age, as it applies to digital music. Here are a couple of sample questions that would lead to some good discussions:

Please discuss the following: Should it be legal to share music online? Is such sharing fair to the musicians, the writers, the producers, etc.? Why do you suppose nearly half of the musicians support music downloading?
In this new digital age, should copyright be re-considered? What kind of new approaches might be considered (i.e. micro-charging for downloading music)? What do you recommend?
Most recently, the band Radiohead moved in a new direction and let individuals decide exactly how much they would pay to download the band’s current album. Does this make good business sense? Is this new model for music downloading going to spread to other recording artists?

You certainly don't have to participate in every discussion. In fact, with 25 students in the class, I think it will be overwhelming to all of us if you try to engage in each and every discussion.

Good luck!

-- Burks

Last Updated 28 January 2008 by Burks Oakley II (oakley@uis.edu)