The start of the new year gave the BERLiN project team a good opportunity to review the project to date and helped provide fresh focus for the push to meet all of the project goals by the end of March.
The sourcing of learning resources is going well with around 80 academics engaged with the project. Some have provided content, some have committed to doing so and others are acting as champions across the academic world encouraging colleagues to get involved. There is also a group emerging that are happy to provide content but due to time limitations won’t be able to do so until after the end of the project. At this point the project has been offered approximately 500 credits worth of resources.
The uploading of resources to U-Now is progressing much more slowly, with copyright clearances the cause of much of the delay. It had been hoped that by the end of December, 175 credits worth of resources would have been uploaded. The figure actually achieved was 85.
The main copyright issues slowing us down include receiving submissions that include images that we do not know the copyright status of and images that we have permission to use within the University but not permission to use openly. If these images don’t impact the integrity of the learning, then we are suggesting that we remove them completely. This has met with a mainly positive response from the academic community. If the images do impact the learning then we are looking to source copyright safe versions where possible. This is sometimes successful and sometimes not and is very time consuming.
One option that we began to explore at the earlier stages of the project was asking for permission from publishers, where we could trace them, to use their copyrighted images. This was mainly conducted directly by academics who in some cases already had relationships with the publishers. This proved time consuming and unfruitful, with not one positive outcome. Barriers included publishers wanting to charge and/or publishers not responding at all too requests. This tactic has been put on hold in the short term. It may be out of scope for this pilot project, but a collaboration between OER projects in an attempt to encouraging a shift in publisher mindset, would be a worthwhile longer term consideration.
We have received submissions that contain third party data where the author has permission to use the data in any standard publication, but when clarification from publishers has been sought as to whether this included open publications, the answer has been no. This led us to us creating an OER terms of use policy, the policy is designed to allow us to place copyright restrictions in distinct sections of resources whilst licensing the bulk of the resource under creative commons.
The policy states that the creative commons licence does not apply to any material in resources which are identified as being authored by a third party and informs the user that where a statutory copyright exception or appropriate licence does not apply, authorisation to reproduce such material must be obtained from the copyright holders concerned. A link to the terms of use will be included in our copyright licence information, in the metadata for all our resources and the licence that users have to agree to before downloading a resource. There will also be a clear indication in relevant sections of resources that a copyright restriction applies.
You could ask does this embrace the spirit of openness. I would answer with another question, namely, which is better, releasing a resource with a few copyright restrictions, or not making that resource available at all? Our terms of use licence can seen at OER Terms of Use.doc it is in word format so anyone wishing to make use of it is more than welcome.The creation of the policy is in itself a cause of delay. We have several resources that could have been uploaded but the decision was made to wait until the policy was in place to avoid any rework the addition of the policy may cause on the resources metadata. The work to incorporate the policy into the resources and repository should be completed this week and from then we can start to upload items.I would like to flag up that JISC legal helped us formulate the final text for the policy and have been a helpful source of information on many of our copyright issues.
It is apparent when looking at resources that there is a mixed understanding of what constitutes a copyright breach, with some people believing that as long as you reference the source correctly then it is ok to include in a resource.
Whilst copyright is a headache, this project is about learning as we go, so the insight we are gaining into what we need to do as we look to ramp up submissions is invaluable. It is my belief that for OER’s to be sustainable we must influence the module design/redesign workflows so that consideration is given to sourcing images from open access sources as part of those workflows. Our plan is to run some information skills for the 21st century workshops.
Moving away from copyright, the next milestone in the project plan is to have 250 credits worth of resources uploaded by the end of January. At this stage I still believe this is attainable due to the number if items we have in the pipeline that are close to being ready to upload.
Keywords: Copyright, JISC BERLiN, U-Now, UK OER
Comments
Including third pary materials for "reproduction only" means of course that learners can still view the relevant images within the resource and therefore continues to support the learning experience whilst catering for different learning styles.
Also those who wish to remix the resource and reuse can also include the images under the same reproduction terms if they secure it from publishers themselves or if a licence is available online which allows all users the same access rights, as is the case with maps, images and photos from the European Union/European Commission. See legal notice: http://ec.europa.eu/geninfo/legal_notices_en.htm for an example.
Our Introduction to European Politics OER illustrates this rather well.
There's a great danger that obsessive fear of litigation by copyright holders will hamstrung the university in producing materials, OER or not. If you're after 100% assurance that 3rd-party materials are ok to use you'll never get it, so that would necessarily lead to a ban on the use of 3rd-party materials. So the uni must settle for a degree of risk. As a developer, I still await a clear public policy statement from the uni on the legal liability of the uni, developers and content providers in the event of any 3rd-party lawsuite. It would be very helpful if this were forthcoming.
My current advice to colleagues - developers and content authors - is:
a) avoid using 3rd party materials and if possible 'roll your own'
b) if you do use 3rd party materials, ensure that you only use materials where the originating source (usually a website) explicitly gives permission for your proposed usage, such as CC (and even then, take note of the 'flavour' of CC).
c) if you can't use CC or PD materials with such blanket permissions, get explicit permission from the copyright holders. If you can't trace the owners and/or they don't reply to your requests, forget it.
d) document all usage of 3rd party materials until you're blue in the face, and store the document in a safe, accessible place
I keep the advice simple because multi-page documents, as have been produced by this university, just will not be read, let alone acted upon. Our School has also developed copyright guidance which I think is available on the portal.
As a personal view, the current system of copyright and usage is unsustainable in the Internet age and is close to breaking down completely. I would expect a new and less restrictive system to emerge by evolution in the medium-term future. Of course in the meantime we have to cover our arses with extreme care in an increasingly litigious world...
Fred