BYU Student Group Returns Web Awards (The New York Times Effect In Action)

Associated Press ^ | May 31, 2003

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BYU Student Group Returns Web Awards

Saturday, May 31, 2003 - Page updated at 2:13 p.m.

Brigham Young University's student news organization has given up two national awards for Web page design because the two students who crafted the page copied material from another Web site.

This spring, the BYU site NewsNet won first place among colleges for Web page design in a contest sponsored by the University of Missouri chapter of the Society of Newspaper Design. The site also won a second place for best college newspaper online in a contest sponsored by the trade publication Editor & Publisher.

NewsNet officials were alerted that their Web site strongly resembled that of Builder.com - a site that provides instruction on how to build Internet sites - by a BYU student in late April.

The undergraduate students who designed the site used Builder.com's graphics, table definitions and a similar color palette, Jim Kelly, NewsNet's general manager, said Friday. NewsNet verified that the students copied from the site after contacting them.

Officials initially had decided to keep the Editor & Publisher award because it was based on content, rather than design, Kelly said. They reconsidered after learning Thursday that NewsNet also won the design award, he said.

"What the students did is wrong, and we apologize to the two contest sponsors and the owners of Builder.com," Kelly said.

The names of the students who designed the site were not released. One graduated this spring.

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On the Net:

http://www.newsnet.byu.edu

http://www.builder.com

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Sounds like someone had an internship in New York City!

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Schadenfreude

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