Publish and be damned?

Real issues of copyright and IPR when publishing open educational resources

in the humanities

Erika Corradini and Oren Stone HumBox Digital Rights Officers

University of Southampton

HEA Annual ConferenceUniversity of Hertfordshire22-23 June 2010

Whose intellectual property?

• Institution/individual conflict is unlikely to be a problem– Creative Commons licences surrender the

“important” rights• leaving nothing to fight about and only third party

material as “the problem”

– But their use is dependent on previous agreement between institution and individual

How does it work out in practice?

How OER learning spaces in UK and the world generally approach IPR

EdShare at the University of Southampton

• An institutional repository “locked in” by institutional password

• Terms & Conditions hand over all IP rights to University “unless otherwise clearly marked”

• Original aim: to make resources “hidden” on local Virtual Learning Environment visible to other possible users within University

• But EdShare includes different levels of access (“Viewing Permissions”)

EdShare

• “Just me” “Selected users” “School/Unit” “University” or “World”

• If “World”, anyone can download the resource• Descriptions (i.e. metadata) of all resources are

visible via Google• “This then generates requests from all over the place

to ask colleagues to share things – even when they have not made the resource visible”

• Resource contributors have the choice of assigning any Creative Commons licence to their work

OpenLearn

• Open University made the decision to make all their course materials freely available

• Clear distinction between:-– LabSpace

• Learners can, within stated limits, deposit anything or rework and remix OU materials for others to use

and– LearningSpace

• “quality assured” – OU takes responsibility

OpenLearn

• OU retains the copyright for its course materials, though extracts may be made under licence

• Creative Commons “Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike” is the licence of choice for LabSpace

• Contributors wishing to translate OU materials and have them appear in the LearningSpace are invited to do so, subject to a “more formal agreement”

The JISC-funded subject OER repositories (like HumBox)

• Between April 2009 and April 2010, JISC and the Academy supported:-– 7 institutional projects– 8 individual projects– 14 subject projects

• All projects faced broadly similar issues• “IPR in OER” Assembly, Southampton, December

2009• UK has highest proportion of centrally funded OER

sharing initiatives

Jorum

• Up until 2009-10:-– Was restricted to UK HE & FE community– The contributors were institutions– Deposit Licence 20 pages long– “The licensor hereby grants to HEFCE a non-

exclusive royalty-free perpetual licence” so HEFCE could do anything it liked (charge access fees, grant sublicences...)

Jorum2 – different levels of “openness”

• JorumOpen (released 19 January)• Jorum Education UK (released Spring 2010) • Jorum Plus - in progress

Jorum Plus

• For resources and groups of users with special requirements not catered for in the JorumOpen or Jorum Education UK licensing regimes

• “typically involving restricted terms and conditions” (3rd party restrictions, institutional login, departmental login...)

• E.g. Medical resources

Jorum Education UK

• Equivalent to pre-2009-10 Jorum• Restricted to UK education sector under terms of

Jorum UK licence

JorumOpen

• Creators and owners are willing to share content worldwide

• Only UK education sector members can create resources

• But anybody in the world can download them• Jorum Deposit Chooser helps you decide

where to go• JorumOpen depositors have a free choice of

all six varieties of Creative Commons licences

Rest of world:Otago Polytechnic (New Zealand)

• Uses WikiEducator as platform to deliver courses

• Recently switched to supporting free and open access to material, based on a NZ Creative Commons licence – “but with options to restrict a resource if it is needed”

• The policy vests ownership of intellectual property (IP) in the creators

Otago Polytechnic: background• Sought legal expertise to help draw up an initial framework to

put out for consultation• According to this, Otago Polytechnic owned copyright of

material developed at the institution. Reactions:-• Staff: “You’re not owning my thinking! If that’s the case, I’ll do

what’s required for my job and do my really creative thinking at home!”

• Students: They’d do what was required to get a qualification, but would keep their best work to themselves because they wanted to be able to set up their own companies to develop their ideas after they finished study.

Connexions• Began with Rice University – now a 16 partner

consortium• Contributions are licensed with the most basic

Creative Commons licence (Attribution)• There is no mention at all of Rights information in

the 202 page PDF Connexions Tutorial and Reference • Site Licence: “Neither the Connexions Project nor

Rice University undertakes any obligation to review or monitor any content submitted to the Repository and shall not have any responsibility or liability in connection therewith.”

Dutch OpenER

• “Over the period 2006–2008, the Dutch Open Universiteit Nederland conducted an experiment in which Open Educational Resources (OER) were offered in an effort to bridge the gap between informal and formal learning and to establish a new style of entry portal to higher education with no barriers at all.”1

• Changed attitudes – great success

1Schuwer, Robert and Mulder, Fred(2009)'OpenER, a Dutch initiative in Open Educational Resources',OpenLearning: The Journal of Open and Distance Learning,24:1,67 — 76

Dutch OER workflow

As in USA, it is not assumed rights checking will be done by contributor

Reproduced with permission of Robert Schuwer

OpenCourseWare Consortium • Over 200 institutions from Afghanistan, Spain,

Vietnam...not just USA• They have to publish “under the institution’s

name materials from at least 10 courses in a format that meets the agreed-upon definition of an opencourseware.”

• The Creative Commons licence used is: “Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike”

Open Courseware Consortium• OCW “Toolkit: Making the Case” section

contains useful info for contributors, faculty, admin

• Presentations designed to allay possible fears about sharing on the part of:-– Higher Administration– Mid-level Administration– Faculty– Information Technology team

Open Learning Initiative (Carnegie Mellon)

• Two paths - “Academic Courses” and:-• Open & Free courses

– no fees, set start/end dates, or enrolment...– no access to an instructor, graded exams,

feedback, or credit/verification...

Summary

• Many totally open repositories exist• Most institutions have “bought in” to the idea of

sharing• Many are developing two tier open/restricted

systems to safeguard core content in relation to institution’s enrolment and awarding functions

• UK central initiative (Jorum) has recognized the value and functionality of that multi-tier approach

What’s the difference?

• Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)http://www.ipo.gov.uk/

• Copyrighthttp://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy.htm

Resources and their owners• Who owns what?

– Copyright law protects the person who owns the creation/the tangible product (not the idea!) etc.

– Licence: what owners let you do with their materials (less restrictive than copyright law)http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

• Who are the ‘owners’?– Institution (owns employees’ teaching resources)– Employees (may have agreed differently with institution)– Students (author/actors: check institution’s policy)– Third parties– Para-academic bodies/agencies – …

CC licences: - Allow to use and repurpose content without asking for permission- Encourage ‘openness’ and interaction between the teaching and learning

communities (and within them)- Encourage good practice

but- Need to be compatible with materials owned by third-parties

It’s all about the community

Looking at resources:Prior to publishing resources in Open Sharing, creators/depositors may want to review them and clear them of any third-party copyright:

• Does your resource contain materials produced by other people?

• If yes, do you hold permission to use those materials?

• Can CC licences co-exist with materials protected by copyright? How do they get along?

• How can risks of infringing copyright be monitored, managed and reduced?

http://humbox.eprints.org/167/

Does your resource contain materials produced by third

parties?

Have you obtained permission?

Third-party materials licensed

to resource developers need to be attributed and may not be subject to CC

licences

Permissions can be obtained by the project’s IPR/copyright Team, on

provision of source details by the resource developer,

but is this model sustainable?

Students grant permission to use/make available their

materials by signing an agreement (depends on

institutional policy)

What if permission CANNOT be obtained?

Your resource is copyright clear

Find alternative copyright-clear material

Ask the IPR/copyright team for advice to work

problems around

What actions have you taken to assess and

reduce risks?

UPLOAD TO HUMBOX UPLOAD TO HUMBOX

NO YES

YES

NO

Permission is required from the copyright owner, UNLESS the material is:

• in the public domain;• a ‘fair dealing’ exception:

• Criticism and Review;• Non-commercial research and private study;• Educational purposes within a university’s premises (in VLE or real teaching environs) etc.

At what stage of the resource-creation process permission should be asked to use third-party materials?

What to do when permission has been given?

– Embed in metadata– Keep track of actions taken and details of permissions

given– Other?

Permissions

Reducing risks1. Establish and acknowledge ownership and report details on resource e. g.

© Owner, publisher, year of publication, and all details that may be of help to find the original resource

2. Embed resource in a context (e. g. ppt and word documents, metadata description, handouts etc.) clearly indicating the purpose for which it is used, for example: criticism and review; not for profit playing of music; non-commercial use of resource

3. Use only ‘small’ portions of third-party materials4. When in doubt about ownership try and link to external source5. Monitor numbers of resource downloaders/viewers (when possible)6. Consider having a view-only policy for resources containing third-party

materials for which permission to repurpose was not obtained7. Embed in your project a notice and take-down policy8. Letter of apology (though this is unlikely to be a long term policy)9. …

Some resources• Intellectual Property Office

http://www.ipo.gov.uk/• Web2Rights project

http://www.web2rights.org.uk/• University of Southampton

http://www.calendar.soton.ac.uk/sectionIV/ipr.html• JISClegal

http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/ http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/ManageContent/ViewDetail/tabid/243/ID/1150/OER--Legal-Matters--Webcast--051109.aspx (Webcast-OER legal matters, 5 November 09)

• Jorum deposit tool

http://deposit.jorum.ac.uk/mod/resource/type/mrcuteput/uploader.php• OpenLabyrinth

http://labyrinth.sgul.ac.uk/openlabyrinth/mnode.asp?id=qwnw2gcf4jesnqajxhq1rx7jzqajxhq• Open Courseware Consortium

http://www.ocwconsortium.org/

‘If I was starting an OER project today,I would use resources created tomorrow’

Jason Miles-CampbellJISClegal