JISC Digital Repositories Conference: Dealing with the Digital Deluge

JISC Digital Repositories Conference: Dealing with the Digital Deluge

On the 5-6th June, 2007, I gave a couple of small presentations at the JISC Digital Repositories, end-of-programme Confere,ce. Overall the conference was stimulating and provided much information to take away and think about.

In addition to the four plenary sessions there were seven different strands spanning repositories and preservation, research data, e-theses, Images, Sharing digital material for e-learning, research papers. I spent most of the conference in the 'Repositories in a legal context' strand session, which I will now report on.

Day One

Legal lessons learned

The aim of the session was for projects to report on the main lessons that we had learned throughout the project lifetime. I spoke about our Rights and Rewards Project.
In short our lessons learned in relation to IPR were;

•We should not assume that stakeholders of repositories know about copyright issues (depositors, end users & senior managers) – we need to tell them!
• Not everyone is willing to share their teaching materials externally - licences may be required for internal sharing.
• Avoiding complex workflows associated in assigning licences to materials reduces barriers.
• Despite the number of identified barriers - many have altruistic views with regards to the sharing of teaching materials.
• Cultural barriers are very difficult to overcome.

Unfortunately I had to leave the session at this point to speak at the Sharing digital material for e-learning session, so I missed the other speakers. John Casey (Trust Dr), Mike Dodds (Jorum) and Michael Ross (CHERRI) gave their accounts.

The second session which I attended was names User Requirements into IPR.

The session started with an presentation from Charles Duncan who spoke about the Intrallect Six Stage Model;

• Recognition of rights

Recognising the rights that we want to express. Some people may be unsure as to what they want others to do with their materials.

• Assertion of rights

Asserting rights in relation to the shared works.

• Expression of rights

Legal framework - copyright is automatic. A variety of licences

• Dissemination of rights

Statements, DREL.

• Exposure of rights

Dissemination, searchable and making licecne information available in repositories.

• Enforcement of rights

Taking protective measures and authenitcation/authorisation

Interestingly, Charles also mentioned recognising rights andthat common or familiar licences are a good way in which people can familairise themselves with licences. Creative Commons are a good example of this.

John Casey also spoke about the six stage model but in relation to the TrustDR project that John is involved with. John outlined that Digital Rights Management is not just a technical problem. John borke this down into three different areas;

Digital: Technology and Use
Rights: Legal and Social
Management: Policy and Culture

John went to to talk about the Trust DR development pack which is currently being produced. This is something to look out for as it will inform those implementing repositories within institution all they need to know about IPR. This should be available in September 2007.

Charles Oppenheim finished the session with an overview of the newly funded two-year JISC Licence Registry Project. They are in the early stages and currently organising a number of focus groups to inform the design of the registry. Please contact R.diensa@lboro.ac.uk if you would like to participate. They are being held in June & July 2007 in London and Manchester.

The project aims to design, implement and evaluate a licence registry containing a vareity of licence agreements suitable for different data types. Rightscom (http://www.rightscom.com/) is working in collaboration with Loughborough Universtiy in this project.

The final session of the day focused on international developments saw three great presentations. Rachel Bruce kicked the session off with developments relating to the joint work between JISC and Surf. The 2003 JISC/SURF Partnering on Copyright Project created a Copyright Toolbox which is soon to be housed at JISC Legal. This toolbox has guides for a number of stakeholders inclduing, HE/FE managers, Academics (including a model licence) and IR/Library Managers.

Naomi Korn (JISC IPR Consultancy) then outlined some findings of a recently completed study into Creative Commons licences in HE/FE. It was excellent to see some barriers, drivers, risks and benefits of Creative Commons licences and her PowerPoints are well worth a flick though - see; http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_digital_repositories/repositories_conference.aspx

Just as the day was coming to a close and all felt tired and drained, a most excellent presentation from Ann Monnotti gave everyone the boost they needed to see through the day. Ann is an associate Proffesor at Monash University, Australia.

Anne's presentation was most useful and interesting and focused on the DART, ARROW and ARCHER Projects. Ann went on to state that developing a trusted IPR framework can be very complex. It was interesting that Ann raised an issue which I outlined in te first session and it was related to willingness of academics. Ann outlined that we can't assume willingness that all depostiors want to make materials Open Access (OA).

Plenty of food for thought at the end of day which which was finsihed superbly by Ann.

Day Two

The first session after the morning plenary was with respect to legal issues and e-theses. Paul Ayris and Charles Oppenheim ran a very interesting session.

The panel session concluded the legal strand and was the last legal session. Charles Oppenheim, John Casey, Ann Monotti and myself discussed where we need to head towards to make a positive step in the IPR arena.


For more information please see; http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/programme_digital_repositories/repositories_conference.aspx

This also contains many of the PowerPoint slides for the plenary and strand sessions.

HEFCE IPR in E-Learning report 2006/20 - Will it have an impact?

The Higher Education Funding Council for England have published a report on IPR in e-learning programmes aimed at senior managers within HE and FE. The report focuses on HEI ownership rights and the importance of making staff, students and third parties aware of their rights whilst being respectful to such groups. It highlights many common situations that can occur amongst these stakeholders and ways around such situations and ways of reducing the risk of disputes occurring between such parties.

Despite the report being informative and useful for institutions, it is unclear whether the recommendations of the report will be implemented within an institutional environment. In the past, the majority of senior managers have been uninterested in IPR and it is unknown whether the report will get digested and have an impact within institutions.

The report highlights a number of legal frameworks and the relationships of institutions, employed staff, students and collaborative third parties. For a long time now a set of clear guidelines for staff, students, other institutions and third parties has been needed to ensure that each stakeholder is aware of the IPR issues and legal situation. The report states that "Every HEI needs to establish a clear, preferably plain English, IPR policy and disseminate it widely across the organisation, including IT guidelines and codes of practice for staff and students" and I agree. This is becoming increasingly important due to the increase in e-learning usage and the increased need to share research and teaching material through systems such as Institutional Repositories and social networking/software sites.

The report also highlights the assistance that is available to institutions in order to combat the problem of rights unawareness and in order to distinguish a clear and plain english IPR policy, including JISC Legal. I'm not convinced whether institutions make use of this support or whether they follow some of the recommendations highlighted in the document. It could be another case where important issues get brushed under the carpet and don't get dealt with because of the lack of knowledge. This report aims to bridge the unawareness gap and to educate managers and other staff about a range of rights issues.

The full report can be found at: http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2006/06_20/ and is 81 pages long, however, the first 31 pages is the written report and the latter 50 is in Annex's of model licence agreements that could be used within institutions.

The popularity and truths of Creative Commons Licences

There has been much talk in recent years about the use of Creative Commons licences, their suitability for use and their pros and cons.

Korn and Oppenheim (2006) explore the these licences and the consideration of using such licences for their works or within an institutional setting. They state that such licences are " driven by those who believe in free and open exchange of digital content"

The full article can be found at: http://www.ariadne.ac.uk/issue49/korn-oppenheim/ and is well worth a read.


From researching into Creative Commons licences , some key points have been discovered;

- They cannot be used in a restrictive environment and therefore promote Open Access. I.e. they could used within an Institutional Repository that restricted access to items.
- They cannot be modified in anyway and then be used with a work.
- The majority of the Creative Commons licences require derivative works (works that are modified) to be distributed under an exact licence that the original work was published.
- They cater for many different countries, and use the relevent jurisdictions for each.

Creative Commons licences are being more widely used and recognised by a variety of people throughout the world of HE and FE and it looks likely that this will continue.

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