Multimedia/Web Project Work and Ethics
What this domain tests
The production process from brief to maintenance, plus the legal and ethical duties of a creator: copyright, licensing, privacy, attribution and accessibility.
Core rules and concepts
- Phases: brief, research, storyboard or wireframe, prototype, build, test, deploy, maintain. Each phase has deliverables and a review point.
- Plan roles, timeline, budget and version control; keep backups and a change log.
- Test usability, accessibility, cross-browser rendering and performance on real devices.
- Copyright arises automatically when a work is fixed; you do not need to register it. Copying without permission infringes unless an exception applies.
- Licences: Creative Commons conditions combine BY (attribution), SA (share alike), NC (non-commercial) and ND (no derivatives). Public domain works have no rights restrictions.
- Ethics: credit sources, obtain consent for personal data and identifiable people, collect only what you need, and never present others' work as your own.
Worked example
A student finds a photo under CC BY-NC and puts it on a class website. Reasoning: non-commercial use is allowed, and attribution with the licence link is required. If the site later carries advertising, the use becomes commercial and the NC condition is breached, so the image must be replaced or relicensed. If the licence had been ND, cropping the photo would also be forbidden.
Traps that cost marks
Treating "free to download" as "free to use"; copying code without checking its licence; publishing a client's data without consent; shipping without backup or test record.