jisc casper cetis 270508

JISC Collections May 28, 2008 | EC SIG - Manchester | Slide 1

Early Reflections on the CASPER ProjectRights management for e-learning materials


Early Reflections on the CASPER Project

Rights management for e-learning materials

Liam Earney


What is CASPER?

JISC, learning materials and reuse

Why a project copyright support function?

What has CASPER been doing?

Issues and reflections

Introduction


What is CASPER?

Copyright and Support Project for Electronic Resources

Funded by JISC as part of the Repurposing & reuse of digital University-level content and evaluation Call

– Set up to address the barriers to sharing and reuse of e-learning content

– 19 projects

– Develop, run and quality assure technology enhanced courses

– Use at least 50% reused and repurposed content sourced externally to their institution.

– The learning materials developed will be deposited in JORUM in perpetuity

CASPER is supporting all of the projects as they deal with issues related to copyright and IPR


JISC and Learning Materials

Ongoing interest in the sharing and reuse of e-content and learning materials

– X4L, RELOAD

– JORUM

Why the interest in reuse and sharing?

– JISC vision of “creation and management of a layer of scholarly academic resources readily available to all who can exploit it.”

– Save academics time and effort

– Improve the student experience and as a result retention rates through access to high quality materials

– Make the sector more efficient and avoid duplication of effort

– Harness the outputs of public funded institutions for the benefit of all


Why a project support function?

The small print…

“The institution and its partners must ensure that deliverables do not in any way infringe copyright or other intellectual property rights of any third party. For content creation projects, copyright and other intellectual property rights should be cleared before digitisation begins or cleared in stages as a managed part of the creation process. ” JISC Terms of Grant Letter



From technological solutions…

“The degree to which educational content can be reused and re-purposed depends on how it is stored, made available, and delivered to the academic user community.”

Introduction to RELOAD (2002)http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_x4l/project_reload.aspx

To the centrality of rights…

“In an institution with significant aspirations in e-learning, copyright management will need to be placed at the centre of the institution’s governance”

HEFCE 2006/20, Intellectual Property Rights e-Learning Programmes



By way of reality…

“The education sector is currently characterised by low levels of awareness and understanding of IPR law and how it is applied to e-learning” John Casey, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Networked e-Learning: A Beginners Guide for Content Developers 2004 (Updated 2006)


What is CASPER doing?

Provide advice

Provide support

Provide legal overview

Share knowledge and best practice

Save time and money

Develop expertise

Undertake copyright clearance

Capture and disseminate experiences!


What is CASPER doing (really)?

“Let's say useful and depressing!”Reproduce project manager


Issues and reflections (1)

Experiences have more in common with John Casey’s comments than HEFCE’s aspirations

There is a wide diversity in experience and knowledge of IPR and copyright and the potential administrative burden that it may entail:

– Partnerships

– Institutional policy – commercial exploitation of learning materials

– Staff contracts

– Issues surrounding internally sourced content

– Rights management and tracking

– Academic practice vs rights management practice

Uncertainty regarding support for rights management within institutions and the need for senior management engagement with issues relating to risk



Discovery and identification of suitable materials

– Identification of Rights holders within those materials

Majority of projects are shunning publisher/commercially sourced content in favour of materials developed by other universities for the majority of their content

In certain disciplines, ‘good enough’ material that is freely available will crowd out paid for content

Copyright statements on university web sites are often silent/inadequate on the use and re-use of content for educational purposes by other organisations

Perception that Free to View equals Free to Use, or that publicly funded material is automatically available under a Creative Commons Licence

Clearing rights in perpetuity for Jorum – a barrier to use



Problems implementing best practice guides and tools

– A lack of confidence in one’s own decision making

Managing the “licensing deluge”

– Research data

– Content licensing

– Learning materials

Greater need for machine readable licensing and the tools that can surface the information as required

– Creative Commons

– Registry of Electronic Licences

– Electronic Resource Management Systems

Changing our own approach to right clearance



BUT…

Genuine engagement with the issue

Real interest in working through the problems


Thank you

Contact Details

– Liam Earney – [email protected] Tel: 0203 3006 6002

– Caren Milloy – [email protected] Tel: 0203 3006 6003

Any Questions?

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

jisc casper cetis 270508

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