Reuse in Academia

This week our students are on spring break.  There are no classes on campus and the halls are empty.  It is a great time to get caught up on reading and writing.

This week I'm writing a paper to present at the 2012 Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium.  I will be presenting with a colleague on the need for big data to support the computer science curriculum.  Our paper is based upon the work we carried out last year in attempt to secure partnerships with industry and a grant funding organization.  As I prepare this paper I'm finding significant value in reusing much of the research conducted last year that went into writing the grant application.  This is a great example of reuse in academic research.

Through this reuse, I'm able to provide insight into our experiences in the partnering and grant processes and place these experience in the context of the current literature.  This research proved valuable in the grant application and will provide value in the conference paper as well.

I would like to encourage reuse of research to my students but when I do so I must also stress the issue of plagiarism.  There is a line between reusing literature research conducted on prior projects and plagiarism.  I want to make sure my students are aware of this line and develop original ideas from prior research.