You can re-use KB answers in their partial, complete, or heavily edited form?
As we suggested in our last posting on October 22, a knowledge base record can be a factual answer to a question, suggestions for sources, research strategies, a bibliography or pathfinder on a particular subject. It can take many formats and serve many purposes. The point is that it need be only a beginning to an answer you’re preparing.
Knowledge base answers don’t have to be re-used in their exact form or with their exact wording. When you re-use an answer, whether you copy it into the answer you’re currently working on or forward it directly to the patron, you are creating a new Q&A that must be processed itself if it’s submitted to a KB. Thus, you are free to use only the parts of the answer you need; you can even freely edit and add new material, because it is now your answer.
Here are some screen shots to illustrate. Someone has asked if the U.S. Civil War influenced photography. The librarian is pretty sure this is a subject that has come up before, so she searches the KB.
Note that she hasn’t really left the Ask module; she is presented with a KB search box. She knows she can enter a phrase in quotation marks and any words outside the phrase will be ANDed with the phrase. (This is all in Help, if you haven’t used the KB search engine. There’s also an Advanced Search link to take you to a page that walks you through this kind of syntax.)
Five records match the query. The first one is probably the one our librarian was remembering.
Take a look at the full KB record. Circled in red is a count of how many times this record has been re-used.
The librarian might decide to just Forward the answer right from the record display page. The answer would be sent to the e-mail address of the patron as it appears on the Answer page. (Remember, our librarian is still technically in the Ask module.) The answer is placed in a message box she can edit. In fact, you can see she’s changed the date of the URL check to the current one. (We’ll assume she did actually check that link.)
The second example is what it looks like if the librarian actually copied the answer into her current Answer box, using the Copy Answer button. She is now back on the Answer page in the Ask module, and has used some, but not all of the data in the original answer.
Take a look at the final result in the question history, after the new answer is sent. A history note documents that a KB record was re-used—and the count of re-uses on that record has been increased by one (not shown here). Comparing the answer in the history, you can see that it differs from the original.
Someone once asked if using another librarian’s previous answer wasn’t plagiarism. Perhaps copying verbatim a long answer in the librarian’s own words would constitute plagiarism. But re-using citations and strategies, with your own editorial comment, to help your patrons is surely “fair use.” A good rule of thumb may be to do what your students are told to do: give credit where credit is due!
If you have any questions about this tip or wish to find out about becoming a volunteer editor for the Global Knowledge Base, please contact Paula Rumbaugh at [email protected].
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