Copyright Compliance on Campus: Make It Easy

By Laura Gasaway,
Law Professor and Director of the Law Library,
University of North Carolina

I applaud Diane Barbour’s article “Online Piracy, Ethical Behavior, and the Unintended Consequences of Technology” in the 6/8/2005 issue of C2. Of course, illegal sharing of music and videos by students garners most of the attention—and the concern—devoted to campus copyright infringement. But adherence to copyright law, particularly in the use of course management systems by faculty and staff, also is critically important.

There are three common copyright phenomena on campuses today: compliance, infringement and, mostly, confusion. I frequently receive inquiries from faculty on my campus and from institutions around the country seeking guidance on the secondary use of copyrighted articles and book chapters as they prepare electronic course materials.

A primary reason for the confusion: Course management systems are used by professors who typically have not had copyright training. Many know neither what they may or may not do, nor the legal risks to which they expose themselves and their universities. The result can be infringement, both accidental and willful. But sometimes the result can be over-compliance. For example, a course management system user might pay for permission to reuse copyrighted content within his or her course materials to which the university already has access under a direct licensing agreement with a publisher or aggregator. This is an easy mistake to make because e-journals are licensed rather than sold, and the provisions of a license for a given publication can be complex. Another common instance of over-compliance: purchase of copyright permission for the first-time use of copyrighted materials, which is not always required. (Details on reproduction of copyrighted works for the classroom under copyright guidelines can be found at http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/classroom-guidelines.htm.)

A key to overcoming these problems, I believe, is to create easy ways for end users to follow the law and support creators’ intellectual property rights—using means that dovetail with the workflow of applications.

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Security Concerns Grow; DR Planning Slow

Campus Computing’s 2005 National Survey on Information Technology in US Higher Education, released last week, points to a growing concern about IT security on campus. “College and university IT officials identify ‘network and data security’ as the ‘single most important IT issue’ affecting their institutions over the next two-three years,” begins the executive summary. Notably, a new survey item reveals that half (50.7 percent) of responding institutions experienced hacks or attacks on their campus network. The report also notes that disaster recovery planning hasn’t gained much ground: “Surprisingly, four years after the September 2001 attacks and the then very public discussions about IT disaster recovery, only three-fifths (57.4 percent) of campuses report a strategic plan for IT disaster recovery, little changed from 2004 (55.5 percent) or even 2002 (53.0 percent).”

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Sakai Foundation for Open Source

The Sakai Project has announced the creation of a nonprofit foundation that will provide a permanent home for the community source efforts of Sakai developers, adopters, and users. Following the Apache Software Foundation model, the Sakai Foundation launch will keep Sakai software open for anyone to use, modify, and distribute, even if they are not among the Sakai Partners. Those who do become Sakai Partners (a contribution of $10K per year; $5K for smaller colleges) may also participate in the governance of the foundation.

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Stanford on ITunes

As announced this past week, Stanford University-related audio content available via the iTunes Music Store will give students, university alumni, and the general public a new way to connect with university resources and information. Among the types of content to be provided will be faculty lectures, information about campus events and performances, music offerings from the Stanford community, and podcasts covering Stanford football. The system will allow restricted access to course-related content as well as free, public access where appropriate.

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Datatel Partners with SAS

The new affiliation, announced this past week, will enhance Datatel implementations with the statistical, analytical, and predictive capabilities of SAS. Colleges and universities will be able to leverage the business intelligence and predictive modeling functionalities of SAS using data held within their Datatel Colleague enterprise resource planning solutions.

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Sun Announces Solaris University Challenge

Competitors will develop innovative projects using Solaris 10 OS or OpenSolaris. Open to qualified undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and IT staff, the winner will receive $5,000 and a Sun Ultra 20 workstation, along with a whopping $100K worth of Sun products for their institution.

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ECS Chair-elect Names

Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is the chair-elect of the Education Commission of the States. She will serve as chair-elect through the summer, at which time she will succeed Governor Mike Huckabee (of Arkansas) for a two-year term as Chair of ECS. A nonpartisan interstate compact, the ECS helps governors, legislators, and state education officials implement public policies to improve student learning at all levels.

CCC Provost to be Acting President

Upon Camden County College President Della Vecchia’s retirement this coming February, Raymond Yannuzzi will assume the duties of the institution’s chief executive officer while a nationwide search for Della Vecchia’s replacement takes place. Yannuzzi has previously held top administrative posts at Baltimore City Community College and Delaware County Community College.

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