TrustDR dissemination

Full scale dissemination of TrustDR development pack onto lists and blogs has already happened, with the release below:

>The final outputs of the JISC TrustDR project are now available.

Managing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in Digital Learning Materials: A Development Pack for Institutional Repositories

Authors: John Casey, Jackie Proven & David Dripps

Distributed under a Creative Commons License - Attribution 2.5 UK: Scotland

Download from:
http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk/outputs.php

The pack is aimed at those who are setting up or running digital collections of learning materials that are managed at an institutional level. It is written in a clear and straightforward style that sets out to persuade the reader of the benefits of engaging with the issues associated with IPR in e-learning. The approach taken is based on the idea that the organisation of an IPR policy in e-learning should reflect and support the educational activity instead of hinder it – and that means understanding ‘the business of e-learning’. To do this it paints a compelling picture of an educational sector in the process of changing from traditional ad-hoc models of teaching to a more sustainable, team-based model – driven by increased student numbers, a greater focus on learners needs, and increased requirements for flexible delivery with the increasing use of digital media and technologies.

The pack is useful and unusual in that it situates its analysis and advice specifically in the highly relevant context of the professional and institutional process change that is required to introduce and extend flexible learning opportunities in our education systems – a common scenario that raises many IPR challenges. It surveys the current confused and contradictory practises in UK education and suggests that these practices reflect a situation where e-learning is not yet effectively integrated into our institutions. It also highlights a lack of involvement and leadership by senior management.

The authors argue strongly that sorting out the IPR policy for e-learning can be a way of getting senior management to engage more effectively with the educational and organisational changes that are needed to make e-learning work. Clarifying IPR policy therefore becomes an enabler for best practice. Looked at in this light - to be able to account for the provenance of content in e-learning materials is really a matter of individual academic integrity and for institutional quality control. Another central argument deals with the relative values of teaching activity by humans and the role of learning materials content, and again the pack promotes the development of policies that properly reflect these values.

The format of the development pack is a central document of about 70 pages linked to other resources; it is designed to allow the reader to dip in and out or to explore themes in greater depth. The pack functions both as a personal training manual and as an organisational development tool, it includes:

• A Beginners guide to IPR in e-learning
• Discussion of the pros and cons of using Creative Commons licences
• Useful set of tools to help analyse your situation and development needs
• A collection of common IPR mistakes made by institutions
• Overview of the relevant technical factors
• An introduction and guide to Risk Management
• Discussion of the kinds of business models associated with the use of creative commons licences
• Understanding and assessing the value of learning materials
• A practical guide to implementing flexible learning (published by the QAA)
• Tools for understanding and modelling organisational and professional change
• Policy discussion and development documents for use at institutional and national levels
• Scenarios/ case studies

The TrustDR (Trust in Digital Repositories) project was charged with developing practical solutions to the problem of managing IPR in collections of digital learning materials. The work was carried out between 2005 and 2007 and was led by Ulster University, Northern Ireland, in collaboration with the UHI Millennium Institute, Scotland. The project website can be found at:
http://trustdr.ulster.ac.uk/

Jackie Pix

Finally got some photos on flickr from our Italy trip. Plan to get some more up there soon, if I get the hang of our new camera.

Keith's gallery is looking good too!

Life beyond TrustDR

TrustDR will hopefully develop a life of its own now that both project workers have taken up new posts. Feedback on our major output: Managing IPR in Digital Learning Materials: A Development Pack for Institutional Repositories has been collated and wide dissemination will follow. We will keep an eye on developments and hope to hear of some instituions using the Pack in practice.

In the meantime, I have turned my attention to new challenges with SQA, as Support Materials Officer working on Learning and Teaching Packs. Hence the long gap since my last post as I get to grips with commuting to Glasgow - and the processes involved in managing the production of e-learning materials, from writers' training to final publication (with a fair amount of copyright to deal with along the way!)

Holistic approach to Accessibility

Browsing some resources on the very useful TechDis website I found some very interesting reading on holistic approaches to e-learning accessibility. In Developing a Holistic Approach for E-Learning Accessibility the authors present a realistic view of e-learning activity and discuss both technical and pedagogic issues, arriving at a pragmatic solution that addresses usability and the learner experience in conjunction with the usual 'checklist' approach to meeting Accessibility standards. Their model goes beyond reliance on W3C guidelines with Learner Needs at the centre and Quality Assurance encircling all relevant factors - harder to implement but arguably more effective and sustainable.

A more recent paper, Accessibility 2.0: People, Policies and Processes extends this approach to combine a 'Tangram model' (using a set of pieces to create any suitable outcome) and a Stakeholder model (built on collaboration and contextualisation). There is a useful description of 'Accessibility 2.0' as a concept and the 'step-change' in its characteristics; for example moving from "Focus on digital resources themselves" to "Focus on purpose of the resources" and "Popularity of automated testing tools" to "Verification of policies and processes". These proposals will require significant investment in user awareness and training, advocacy and policy development but represent an interesting and creative approach.

As an aside, I liked the comparison to a real-world example of how to make the learner experience of a geography fieldtrip in inaccessible terrain accessible to all:
"A blinkered approach would be to seek to make the mountain accessible by building a ramp or by cancelling the field trip for everybody". (Kelly, Phipps and Swift)

Ecologies and ecosystems

A draft report from the Repositories Research Team (a collaboration between UKOLN and JISCCETIS), "An ecological approach to repository and service interactions" has been published for consultation. It uses metaphors from ecology to represent the interactions between repositories and services, and in this way does provide a useful conceptual mapping at a high level by tapping into existing frames of reference. Basically - considering all factors (human as well as technical) and different perspectives is crucial. In TrustDR we describe that simply as a systematic or holistic approach.

I like the way this approach can provide a useful store of arguments, definitions, explanations etc. for communicating about repositories - for example using 'Biodiversity' to describe how healthy systems thrive with a range of services and are not dependent on single solutions or proprietary technologies; or describing the impact of 'environmental factors' such as OA mandates.

Where I begin to have a problem, is the report's claim that "Ecology offers a neutral metaphor". Not all its terminology is 'neutral' in terms of the concepts it portrays. For example, using parallels with food chains to describe the 'consumption' of data doesn't account for the fact that data is not depleted in the same way as food. This can lead to the same sort of reactions to terms like Intellectual Property which conjures up notions of 'my stuff' and comparisons to physical property, even though a nuanced definition can frame it as a nonrivalrous resource (ie. your use does not rival mine), and accompanying IP laws that balance incentives to create with public rights of access rather than being a system of perfect control for rights holders.

On reflection, it is just this kind of reaction that approaches such as this are designed to provoke - at least it gets us communicating and perhaps re-examining our concepts. However, I do wonder how many reference models we can usefully employ without seriously muddying the waters (or pond?).

The report describes several other uses of the ecology metaphor, and I would add another where the authors have used an ecosystem model to describe all the factors of DRM in relation to education. In this case there is no attempt to map every concept, but simply draws on our notion of an ecosystem to present their case.

Formal/informal sharing

Some interesting discussions took place at the recent joint meeting of the JISC CETIS Metadata and Digital Repositories/Educational Content SIGs which was investigating new ways of sharing content. Technologies seem to fall into 2 categories - conventional or disruptive.

Conventional types are managed and controlled by institutions, such as VLEs, and its interesting that Learning Object Repositories are classed as conventional when there's still very little activity embedded in institutions. Disruptive technologies would be things like RSS, perhaps with the addition of Yahoo Pipes to filter and combine feeds from various sources. This is seen as empowering for individuals, handing control over to their workspace.

Several speakers highlighted the need for both approaches, with institutions providing authorotative sources and quality metadata while allowing users the freedom to use content where they feel comfortable. However there are still issues about the need to monitor, assess or archive students' work, which can't be done through flickr!! Also, institutions may need to track use of technology simply to be able to decide whether to keep on providing resources to support it. If a repository merely provides the backend through which users find content but never really 'visit', the arguments to support it become more intangible. We need to find ways of ensuring the value of managed technology services is still recognised.

Web 2.0 reports

Just been reading a couple of recently published reports on Web 2.0 relating to education.

The TechWatch report really gets beneath the technologies and while describing many of them in detail (blogs, wikis, RSS etc.) clearly puts them in their place; simply as ways of supporting specific ways of working, attitudes to content and new business models. In fact these technologies return the power of the web to its original intention - the networked 'edit' function - rather than the passive browsing environment it had become for most people. So while we think Web 2.0 is magical and innovative, it is not so new after all, perhaps just a new hype to cash in on renewed enthusaism for the web after the dot.com disillusionment?

The report goes on to discuss implications for education, perhaps the most crucial being issues of 'ownership' and curation of data when learning is spread across numerous systems integrated to varying degrees with institutional administration. We also risk giving over control of this data to commercial enterprises who might not have the same agenda, and users also face access overload on top of existing information overload.

The result of a JISC study into Web 2.0 for sharing learning content is perhaps less good at getting to the heart of definitions and philosophy behind Web 2.0, but the impression I was also left with from reading this was that the more prevalent social networking and informal learning become, the greater the need for formal systems and services such as repositories that take a view on what is of value, act to preserve content and mediate access.

Business models and CC licensing

Much of the TrustDR work produced over the last couple of years has been looking at the underlying business model for mainstream e-learning and how establishing what that really is points to an 'IPR management regime' - at its most basic, whether the value is in the content or in the teaching process (supported by shared content), and choosing appropriate licences to express your intent.

There's a really useful article from First Monday that describes some different economic models that make use of Creative Commons licences - focussing on managing risks and opportunities. Also worth looking at is the model agreement from Open Business that seeks to create a framework for business use of CC licensed work.

This post from (c)ollectanea pretty much sums up the idea that we can solve what we perceive to be a copyright problem with the right business model.

Fair(y) use tale

Fantastic video using some familiar animated characters from film 'snippets' to explain the concepts of copyright and fair use. Cleverly done, part of the Fair Use Project at Stanford Law School so comes with a certain amount of authority, and should help to put across the notion of 'Get a grip'!

Practical solutions to using copyright digital content

The Perth College Library Webspots blog highlights a really useful online interactive copyright activity launched by JISC Collections recently. The tool uses common scenarios with related questions to introduce the legal issues, and gives some helpful pointers on how to carry on with the business of education within the bounds of the law.

Sharing the educational process

As guest contributor to Penn State's Open Source Software in Education Series, James Dalziel has posted a fascinating discussion about Learning Design and what he calls Open Source Teaching - the use of Open licences such as Creative Commons to share codified descriptions of educational processes.

Some interesting points are raised about the use of licensing; attitudes to commercial/non-commercial conditions of use, incentives such as attribution and reputation, and ironing out any misconceptions about 'ideas' being copyrightable. The overall effect is to dispell myths that create barriers to sharing, and give the message that the value of Learning Designs is enhanced through reuse.

Well worth reading the full post and responses.

And the winner is...

SNP - sort of.

Finally decided at 5.30pm with the very last list result, the party with the most seats in the Scottish elections is the SNP. Almost managed to forget the complete shambles of the vote in the excitement! Now the reality sets in while everyone tries to work out who their friends are.

Brian Taylor's blog gives a brief and to the point commentary on proceedings.

(I'm pretty sure the people who designed the ballot papers hadn't read The design of everyday things or they wouldn't have created something that required instructions)

Good luck to Alex 3-jobs Salmond and his team!!

Arguing for institutional 'Openness'

An article by Kenneth Mentor in the Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration provides some very reasoned arguments for Open Access Learning Environments that could help with advocacy. While speaking from a US perspective, the situation sounds familiar with misapprehension and assumptions about intellectual property, value, privacy etc. stifling potential benefits. Some very practical solutions are shown to benefit pedagogical aims, and importantly the author points out "In addition to the efforts of individual educators, institutions can make a variety of policy choices that encourage open access."

Open educational content

Lots of stories and comments appearing this week about Open and user-generated educational content, so will gather some here in the best Remix fashion...

The OU is using YouTube to promote OpenLearn, emphasising the 'extra value' reuse possibilities as well as access to free educational resources.

OECD release a study called Participative Web: User-Created Content looking at the impact and challenges of 'UCC' and likely new business models

IWR reports JISC developing 'agile systems' to try and harness the potential of new online environments for mainstream education. The plan is aparently to 'take risks on behalf of the community' - recognising the problems institutions have connecting with learners in their informal environments.

The Online Education Database has produced an annotated list of tools and resources that promote participation in collaborative educational content creation and publication. Its an odd list, covering things like licensing models (but not Creative Commons), software, organisations, OpenCourseWare projects and repositories - some of which are 'Open' only if you make them so - but useful to see the range of activity.

The power of CC

Creative Commons (CC) is growing in use and awareness, and is helping change attitudes to digital content and its possibilities. The Eduserv Foundation has recently announced support for CC in the form of a donation, recognising the opportunities these licences present for education.

"CC has liberated us from thinking first and foremost about protecting and restricting content and has given us the ability to focus on sharing, which is fundamental to both learning and research"

Michael Geist and Andres Guadamuz report on a recent legal case involving a photographer alleging breach of his licence terms. The strength of CC will be enhanced as more cases appear, provided the licences are recognised and upheld by the courts!

Anti DRM technology stance

After careful consideration, MIT Libraries have cancelled a subscription to an online database that demands access is controlled by a Digital Rights Management plug-in. In a related story, authors are given guidance on retaining rights in their published work to allow reuse in teaching or deposit in Open archives.

The Open Access march moves on...

Meanwhile parts of the music industry are also emerging with a firm anti DRM stance, such as this story about Musicload and this open letter from Apple's Steve Jobs

ISKO UK

The British Chapter of the International Society for Knowledge Organization has recently been established, and ISKO UK held its inaugural meeting on 26th March 2007. The association aims to promote understanding of Knowledge Organization practices across diverse domains, aiming to share good practice and enhance information skills amongst all users of information.

They are welcoming new members who are interested in sharing experiences and perspectives of KO in all sectors in a collaborative manner. ISKO UK provides an excellent forum for topics of interest to information professionals.

Exploring Metadata

I continue to trawl around finding resources about metadata - you can never have enough descriptions of descriptions about stuff, or data on data about data - can you?

Anyway, just a couple here:

A useful page of resources from the University of Virginia. Ignore everything if you like and head straight for Metadata Fun and play Guess-the-Google! Addictive, but also a useful lesson in the problems with descriptive metadata for images.

Conrad Taylor's thought-provoking article on Metadata's many meanings and uses attempts to unite understanding across communities.

Creative Commons

In case you haven't spotted the links on the right, I'll just start off by mentioning Creative Commons (CC) licensing. It's basically a really simple way to let people know how they can use your work, while still giving you copyright protection and attribution. The licences come in several shapes and sizes, but all of them have versions that humans, computers and lawyers can understand! This means you can search for content with CC licences and be safe in the knowledge you can legally share or reuse it.


Creative Commons is being used for sharing photos in places such as Flickr, and in education, for example MIT OpenCourseWare and Connexions Repository.



Sites like Geograph British Isles revolve around user generated content, with contributors licensing their work with CC.

See this picture on the Geograph site

The day job (and how to describe it)

Most of the gathered thoughts and links I post here will relate to my job, but in some ways that doesn't really narrow things down! I am (was?) a librarian so there will be stuff about information management, metadata, organising knowledge, digital libraries and repositories... I work in education so there will be musings on e-learning, institutional culture, learning objects... I am doing research so I will gather links to useful and interesting stuff by other people... and the central focus of my current post, as 'Digital Rights Research & Development Assistant' for the JISC-funded TrustDR project, is managing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in e-learning material so lots of stuff about copyright, DRM, Open Content, Creative Commons...

So basically, I'm interested in the material that people create, find, use and share primarily for teaching and learning, and the related challenges, opportunities and barriers.

The official version of me can be found at the UHI and everything about TrustDR on the project website

First post

Well, I've finally got round to putting pen to paper, or rather fingers to keyboard, and entered the world of blogs. Bit of a late starter on this occasion! I wite so much in other places that it seemed an odd thing to do, but you never know, it might prove useful.

I have good intentions, but with a day-job, studying part time and a house to renovate my posts may be rather infrequent. I'm also not used to talking to 'no-one in particular' so ~I'll have to get my head round that too.

Anyway, it was pretty easy to get started, lets see if I continue...