Jane Secker

About Jane Secker

Digital Literacy and Copyright Advisor at LSE's Centre for Learning Technology

Copyright, the future and Brexit – what does it mean for education?

The following post is based on a post published on the UK Copyright Literacy blog by LSE’s Copyright and Digital Literacy Advisor, Jane Secker and Chris Morrison, Copyright and Licensing Compliance Officer at the University of Kent. An edited and abridged version appears below.

I’ve now been to two recent events on the future of copyright in the UK following our exit from the European Union. Whatever your views on Brexit, we can’t deny it will happen but there is much uncertainty about what it means for education and what copyright implications there might be. This is because in recent years much UK copyright legislation has been amended following directives from the European Union. And there are important new changes going through the European Parliament currently on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. On 12 January 2017, the Commission’s proposal was debated by the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI). This week EIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) issued a statement on the need for copyright reform across Europe, supporting the statement issued by five key organisations (including LIBER, and the European Universities Association) on ‘Future-proofing European Research Excellence‘. LIBER are also calling for more change to copyright to give Europe a real opportunity to become a global leader in data-driven innovation and research.

So what does the future hold for copyright in the UK? In October last year I was interested to read t his LSE blog post from Professor Alison Harcourt of Exeter University. However, I thought I would share a few thoughts from recent events. Firstly in October last year I attended a meeting at the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to discuss the copyright implications of Brexit on the higher education sector. Then earlier this week a conference organised by the Journal of Intellectual Property, Law and Practice (JIPLP). Both events were an opportunity to understand more about how important copyright and IP are particularly in the context of international trade but also the increasingly global education offered by the UK. In both meetings all agreed that following Brexit the UK would not have the same relationship with the Court of Justice of the EU, but no one was clear if decisions of this court might be taken into account by English judges. There were references here to important recent cases on issues such as whether hyperlinking is copyright infringement.

However what is clear is that not only does Brexit mean Brexit (and of course we all know exactly what that means) it also means we are unlikely to get a new copyright act in the UK any time soon. This is despite the view of Sir Richard Arnold, British High Court of Justice judge, that we are much in need of one. On Monday he gave us eight reasons why the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended and revised) was long overdue a major overhaul, technology being his first reason and Brexit being the last. This last reason was a recent addition – for the original list of seven reasons see his Herchel Smith IP lecture from 2014. However he concluded by saying that copyright is unlikely to be a priority for parliament over the next few years.

So in these dark, rather depressing January days is there any light on the horizon? The IPO suggested Brexit might be an opportunity to rethink copyright and make it fit for the UK. The lobbying work of organisations such as EIFL and Communia are hoping to convince Brussels that reforming copyright to support education and research is vital. We would like to think that those within the research and education world might be able to play a significant role in shaping the future of copyright in the UK. But it remains to be seen….

January 24th, 2017|Conferences, copyright, Ed-Tech news and issues, Open Education, Reports & Papers, Teaching & Learning|Comments Off|

I’ve been familiar with the work of Etienne Wenger on communities of practice for some time and first came across his ideas when I was working at UCL in 2001. At UCL the community of practice concept was used in the context of engaging staff across an institution with learning technologies. I also once had the pleasure of attending a conference where Etienne Wenger gave a keynote and I was struck by the idea of a how apprentices learn a craft or profession through the support of their peers and more experienced staff.

Therefore over the summer when Chris Morrison, Copyright and Licensing Compliance Officer at the University of Kent told me he was setting up a community of practice at his institution for those interested in copyright matters, the idea immediately grabbed my interest. It was occurring to me, partly through the research we have done about librarians’ knowledge and experience of copyright, that there must be a better, more sustainable way of supporting my colleagues at LSE. I was acutely aware that as one person, providing them with support was becoming increasingly difficult, and often my responses to copyright queries were over email, or face to face with one specific individual. It meant the opportunity for others to learn from copyright queries was limited. But also I was limited in how I could learn from others experience and knowledge too.

The first LSE copyright community of practice took place in September 2016, and so far we have held three meetings. The next is coming up on the 9th December and it’s going to be a chance to play some copyright games! The sessions are open to all staff and I’ve tried to keep them informal, so people feel they can bring queries and topics for discussion along on the day. However, I also tend to put a couple of things on the agenda where I think there might be a wider interest in the topic. We’ve discussed topics such as Creative Commons licences, issues related to readings in Moodle, the new CLA Licence, a new library digitisation project of EU referendum leaflets that has involved significant copyright issues and the new UK copyright exception permitting text and data mining. Most importantly we serve tea, biscuits and occasionally some copyright cakes!

The audience has included a variety of staff from across LSE, with quite a number of library colleagues attending fairly regularly. Librarians often get asked a lot of copyright issues in their day to day work, so it is great they can come along and share their experiences. They also are usually very keen to stay up to date and discuss topical issues such as digitisation of orphan works, or scanning readings under the CLA Licence. LSE blog editors have also been another group who’ve attended the meetings regularly, and this has led me to do a separate session on copyright at their blog editors forum. I’m also drafting some guidance on copyright advice for blog editors with Chris Gilson, editor of the LSE American Politics and Policy Blog and Chris Morrison from Kent.

If you fancy finding out more about the Copyright Community of Practice then why not book a place at the next event on the 9th December! If the idea of copyright games doesn’t appeal to you then come along for the biscuits!

November 29th, 2016|copyright|Comments Off|

The UUK / Guild HE Copyright Working Group: a personal perspective

I was speaking to a colleague recently who was delighted to hear about the increase in the extent limits from 5% to 10% in the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) recently revised Licence for the higher education sector and she asked how this had come about. In a rather flippant way I said, ‘I did that’ and she laughed thinking I was joking. And then I thought about it for a moment, and then said ‘no in fact I did do that, through my work on the Universities UK / Guild HE Copyright Working Group. Of course it was not all my work, there is a team of us, and I am just one of the group, but collectively this is something our group did achieve for the higher education sector this year, through our hard work and negotiations over the past three years with the CLA. One of the meetings was with publishers where we strongly argued the case for increasing the extent limits along with a wider ‘wishlist’ of requests from the HE sector. The requests had been gathered during a workshop in July 2015 which was attended by over 40 university copyright officers and I helped to organise.

My colleagues know I disappear about four times a year up to Woburn House where UUK is based and I usually report back that we had a meeting with the CLA or another collecting society – we do also meet the Educational Recording Agency (ERA) and respond to various consultations on copyright matters from the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO). Most recently I was one of four members of the group who attended a meeting at the IPO about Brexit and the copyright implications for universities. However, in the run up to August this year, when the new CLA Licence was finally launched, the UUK / Guild HE Copyright Working Group meetings became more frequent and I did help with quite a number of pieces of work, such as reviewing the user guidelines for the sector and being on a group reviewing the set up of a new optional service for universities called the Digital Content Store.

A chance comment from my colleague made me realise that it was important to write more about why I am on this group, what we do, and why it’s so important to LSE and the HE sector as a whole. It’s also one of the most rewarding external committees that I am part of, and one that over the years has really tested my abilities to negotiate, stay calm under pressure and deal with people and organisations who sometimes have polar opposite opinions on matters relating to copyright, educational exceptions and licensing for the sector. But it’s also an example of what can be achieved through setting those differences aside and trying to work for the common good.

What is the UUK / Guild HE Copyright Working Group?

The CWG was established by the then Committee of Vice Chancellors and Principles and the Standing Committee of Principles (now Universities UK and Guild HE) in anticipation of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988. The act provided for the copying of strictly limited extracts of copyright material for teaching

November 15th, 2016|copyright|Comments Off|

Lecture recording in UK Higher Education: results from a survey

Lecture recording is an optional service available in many of the School’s classrooms. However, it’s a topic that sometimes causes concerns among staff about issues relating to copyright and intellectual property. I’ve been interested in this topic for some time and written guidance for staff at LSE about using the service. However, in September Chris Morrison from the University of Kent and I presented the interim findings from the lecture recording survey at the ALT-C conference, which was carried out earlier this year to investigate copyright and IP policies at 33 higher education institutions. The research was carried out to better understand the different universities policies relating to copyright and intellectual property. Some of the issues we explored included: obtaining consent from lecturers, the ownership of the resulting recorded lecture, how third party copyright (such as images or charts) was handled in recorded lectures and the levels of copyright advice and support available to lecturers.

Thirty three institutions from a good range of Russell Group, post-92 and other universities responded to the survey. We followed up the survey with a policy analysis based on 11 documents collected from a sub-set of the respondents.

The report is finally now available and LTI are grateful to Juliana Rios-Amaya who was a research assistant with us over the summer and worked hard on the analysis and drafting of the report. Thanks to everyone who helped make this research possible including: Philippa Hatch (Imperial College), Alex Fenlon (University of Birmingham), Charlotte Booth (University of Reading), Carol Summerside (Newcastle University), Helen Cargill (Kings College London), Phil Ansell (Newcastle University) and Scott McGowan (Keele University) who helped devise the survey. Also thanks for John X Kelly, Lizzie Gadd and Ronan Deazley for commenting on earlier drafts.

Rios-Amaya, J., Secker, J. and Morrison, C. (2016) Lecture recording in higher education: risky business or evolving open practice. LSE / University of Kent. [PDF]

Executive Summary:

Reports on a survey into the copyright and intellectual property (IPR) policies of UK higher education institutions with regards to lecture recording. The practice of using institutional semi-automated lecture recording systems is becoming mainstream with 71% of institutions reporting using it in 2016 (UCISA, 2016). However, these systems raise a number of issues related to copyright and IPR that in some cases are documented in specific policy documents. Issues that arise include the consent that is obtained from academic staff, the ownership of the resulting outputs and responsibility and advice given for the use of third party content in the lectures. These issues are also often linked to, or conflated with wider ethical issues such as identity, privacy and academic freedom. The findings from the survey are presented alongside a policy analysis of IPR documents and policies from 11 institutions. These are compared to the guidance provided by Jisc (2015). The findings from the survey reveal that most institutions are still developing their IPR policy with regards to lecture recording, that many institutions seek consent from lecturers, but there is an increasing move towards making lecture recording opt-out as opposed to opt-in. The survey revealed in 94% of cases the lecturers or presenter is responsible for any third party content contained within their lecture and while institutions do offer advice about dealing with third party content, much of it is delivered in a relatively passive way, through agreeing to use the system or by information made available online in guides. The findings from the policy analysis suggest that those institutions with a high level of institutional control tend to have a higher level of comprehensiveness of approach towards lecture recording. Additionally the institutions that provide a higher level of support for copyright advice, have a tendency towards open practice and higher levels of appetite for risk. Good practice advice for institutions and recommendations for further research are presented as part of this study.

November 10th, 2016|copyright, Reports & Papers, Tools & Technologies|1 Comment|

Copyright, reading lists and Moodle

Just before the start of term there was some exciting news in the world of copyright, when the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA)’s new higher education licence was launched. Also importantly the limit of 5% of a work has been increased to 10% – hurray I hear you say! In case you didn’t know, the CLA licence is what covers you to make photocopies for students for use in teaching, it’s a blanket licence, but there are some important limits and exclusions. The licence also covers scanning, and for many years we have offered a highly efficient Epack service (now called Scanned Readings service) in the library. So why do we do this?

Well partly, because scanning readings under the CLA Licence has certain terms and conditions that must be followed such as the requirement to report every scan we deliver to students annually to the CLA. You also need to check if material is covered by the licence, and make sure you don’t copy more than one chapter from a book, one journal article from an issue or 10% of the work – which ever is greater applies. So it’s really important that staff use the Scanned Readings service so we can stay compliant with our CLA Licence. Did you know we pay a little over £7 per full time student for the licence each year, but that money is in fact returned to the authors and publishers of the work? If you write books and articles you should make sure you have registered with the Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) as you’ll see some of that money (which compensates you for possible loss of sales) returned to you.

In addition, the Library have started using a new service delivered by the CLA with the British Library, so host the readings on a Digital Content Store, so you simply need to add links to the files from Moodle. It simplifies things but also helps ensure we can get access to readings that might have been scanned at other universities, and ultimately it will improve the quality of the readings. Please don’t think it saves time and effort by scanning readings or using PDFs you download from e-journals in Moodle. It’s breaking copyright laws but also ultimately not demonstrating to students how to use content ethically, that rewards and gives credit to the original author. And using the Reading List system is also the best way to help direct students to the resources we already pay for. If you would like to find out more about how it works with Moodle, then do get in touch with your Academic Support Librarian.

If you are baffled by copyright and would like to find out more, then please do consider coming along to a copyright workshop we run each term, where through playing Copyright the Card Game, you can develop and test out your copyright knowledge. The next session is on Monday 14th November. Additionally if you have any queries you are also welcome to attend the Copyright Community of Practice, which runs every month, and is an informal forum for those interested in discussing copyright matters. Or you can drop a line to LTI’s Copyright and Digital Literacy Advisor, Dr Jane Secker (email j.secker@lse.ac.uk), who will be more than happy to test her own knowledge to help you figure out your copyright conundrum. So don’t just copy, copy it right, and don’t be scared of copyright, after all it offers you as an author a lot of protection, and by learning more about the law you can understand what is possible for teaching and research.

November 2nd, 2016|Announcements, copyright, Digital Literacy, Events & Workshops (LTI), Moodle, Teaching & Learning|Comments Off|

Choosing between print or electronic…. or keeping both?

In the year 2016 you could be forgiven for assuming that print format academic readings are on their way to extinction or sharply in decline amongst student in higher education. Nevertheless, according to the Academic Reading Format International Study (find ARFIS on Facebook) carried out during the Lent term of 2016, this is far from true and in fact most university students still prefer to read in print format for academic purposes. The survey is part of an international study carried out in more than 20 countries to date; it was completed by 655 students from different universities in the UK. This post provides a summary of some of the key findings, which are similar to findings from around the world. We have also highlighted some of the specific findings in relation to students at LSE. You can read the full ARFIS UK report in LSE Research Online.

They survey found that 42 percent of participants strongly agree to preferring all their course materials in print format, followed by 28 percent who agreed with this statement. This finding is very similar to the one found by Diane Mizrachi who surveyed students in the US (see Mizrachi, 2014). When asked about the convenience of reading in electronic format, the opinion of the participants in the UK was divided: 27 percent disagreed with the statement “It is more convenient to read my assigned readings electronically than to read them in print”, while 25 percent agreed with this statement.

In the case of the LSE participants, the results were very similar. 49 percent of the LSE participants strongly agreed to preferring all their course materials in print format. In terms of learning engagement, 43 percent of the LSE participants strongly agreed to remembering information from their course reading better when reading from print format. Furthermore, 53 percent of the LSE participants strongly agreed to the statement “I can focus on the material better when I read it in print”. However, there were some differences between participants at the LSE and the findings for the whole UK. Compared to UK results, a higher proportion of LSE students agreed and strongly agreed to finding it more convenient to read their assigned readings in electronic format, than to read them in print. Also a slightly higher proportion of participants from LSE reported highlighting and annotating their electronic readings (see the full report for further details.)

In general, the results of the study suggest that there still is a wide preference for print format, especially for the purpose of learning and study. Although, this preference can vary according to different factors such as: cost of printing, possibility of remote access and portability, availability of print copies, among others. The purpose of the reading can also be very important in terms of preference and convenience. As one of the participants expressed:

“If I read for writing assignments, I like using computer to make notes as words are easier to be moved and organised. Therefore, I prefer electronic copies. But, if I read to prepare for classes only, I like reading with printed copies and I can underline words and make marginal notes.”

In this sense, the preference for one or the other format might not be a fixed one. Students can prefer or find more convenient print or electronic formats in different contexts. The option of accessing both formats, together with training courses or workshops for students to become more familiar with the electronic reading platforms offered by their universities and how to use note-taking Apps, are recommended to better meet students’ needs.

Further to this study and linking to the students understanding of the use of technology, Learning Technology and Innovation recently completed a research project (2020 vision) aimed at gathering the student voice on the future for educational technology. An overarching finding is that students don’t know what they aren’t shown; resulting in them not knowing how technology can be used to enhance teaching and learning. Such finding and findings in this ARFIS report highlight the importance of engaging with the students in order to understand how they learn, what they use to learn and their views on how to enhancing teaching and learning.

In general, the results of the ARFIS UK study contribute to our understanding of students’ use of technology in the course of their studies. They also help to inform purchasing decisions being made in university libraries over the acquisition of textbooks, e-books and their digitisation policies.

June 30th, 2016|Digital Literacy, Reports & Papers, Research Skills, TEL Trends|1 Comment|

Do games improve learning? Jane tells us more…..

Everyday people rely on Google for answers to their most personal, important and most trivial questions. How do you know if the information is reliable? A good place to start is with an information expert. This post, from LTI’s Copyright and Digital Literacy Advisor Dr Jane Secker to investigate “Do games improve learning?” was originally posted by CILIP as part of their Ask a librarian series. It’s been re-posted here as LTI are currently funding a number of projects to investigate the value of games in learning as part of their IGNITE and LTIG funding streams.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on whether games improve learning, partly in the run up to LILAC 2016, where I’d rashly agreed to take part in the games competition Lagadothan, organized for the first time by the conference committee.

My interest in games and learning goes back several years but really started in earnest when I worked with Chris Morrison from the University of Kent, to help develop a game to teach librarians about copyright and the new exceptions to UK copyright law in 2014. It was a card game, you might have heard of it? You might have played Copyright the Card Game? I use this in the Introduction to Copyright workshop at LSE that I run each term and it’s changed the way I think about teaching people about copyright, for the better!

The game been downloaded over 2500 times, and the general consensus seems to be it’s a fun and engaging way to learn about copyright. But has it led to people retaining more knowledge about copyright and can they transform what they have learnt into practice? These are important questions to consider on the real value of games in learning.

There has been a lot of interest in the last few years in games-based learning in two of my fields of professional interest: learning technology and information literacy. I started off thinking that games were all about livening up your teaching, and finding a way of engaging students in what could otherwise be a rather dry subject. However, following the keynote at this year’s LILAC from Alex Moseley and Nic Whitton, I felt the time had come to do some serious research into whether games improve learning and why that might be.

I’d been intrigued to hear about the idea of a ‘magic circle’ where new rules can apply and failure is acceptable. I’ve also learnt that designing good educational games is really hard work, and takes a lot of time and effort. So are the rewards really worth it? I decided to turn my attention to what Google can find for us on this topic:

$Screenshot of Google search for \"Do games improve learning\". Results include articles from telegraph.co.uk, rochester.edu and neuronethlearning.com$

May 26th, 2016|Ed-Tech news and issues, games, LTI Grants, Projects, Tools & Technologies|Comments Off|

LTI meet Maggie Philbin earlier this year

Next week, Thursday 12th November we have Maggie Philbin, CEO of TeenTech and former TV presenter, coming to LSE to give a NetworkED Seminar: Tea, Tech and Teens at 3pm. We still have a few tickets available for this event, but it is proving extremely popular, so hurry if you wish to attend.

I caught up with Maggie earlier this week at the TeenTech Awards at Buckingham Palace, where the winning student projects got to meet the patron of TeenTech, HRH the Duke of York. I was attended as a sponsor of the Research and Information Literacy Award, which was launched this year to recognise good practice in finding, evaluating and using information to underpin the project. I asked Maggie a few questions ahead of next week’s seminar at LSE.

Jane: Can you tell me a bit about what inspired you to set up TeenTech and why you think it matters?

Maggie: We set up TeenTech back in 2008 because I was aware of a yawning gulf between companies who were crying out for people with the right skills and a generation who had never had so much access to technology but hadn’t realised they could be building and innovating rather than simply using it. Setting TeenTech up as a collaborative organisation was very important as I’d seen so many initiatives working in silos and unwittingly undermining good work done by others. So TeenTech is all about bringing together companies and organisations who share the same aim of helping young people understand they very much belong in the world of technology and the skills that will help them take advantage of more opportunities. We work with some very brilliant people who make TeenTech very special.

Jane: What are some of the most inspiring products or innovations that young people have developed as part of TeenTech?

November 5th, 2015|innovation, NetworkED, Research Skills, Teaching & Learning|Comments Off|

Estonian adventures in information literacy

Two weeks ago I attended the European Conference on Information Literacy (ECIL2015); the third I was fortunate enough to attend. Held in Tallinn the capital of Estonia, which is a beautiful medieval city on the Baltic coast. The theme of the conference was Information Literacy in the Green Society and back last year when this was announced I was a little unsure what it meant. In fact few papers I attended addressed green issues directly, but what I took away was that information literacy is central to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals, and IL is all part of building sustainable, democratic societies, where people have access to information and the critical abilities to know what to do with it.

I had a busy schedule, presenting three papers at the conference. The first was about our Student Ambassadors for Digital Literacy programme at LSE, now in its third year, so the focus of the paper was on sustainability and the impact of this programme on our undergraduate students, following the extensive evaluation we carried out in the summer of 2015. My slides are available on Slideshare and I co-authored this paper with my colleague from LSE, Maria Bell. SADL has just recruited 45 LSE undergraduates and we have 9 Senior Ambassadors supporting the programme of workshops and activities this year. Go SADL!

My second paper was inspired by attending a series of papers at last year’s ECIL on European research into the copyright literacy knowledge of library and related professionals. Following this I got involved in the second phase of this multi-national study of copyright literacy, coordinating the UK version of this survey with Chris Morrison, from the University of Kent. We presented our findings from over 600 UK librarians in an interactive, ‘Play your Cards Right’ style session to compare the data with other countries. Again these slides are on SlideShare. You can also find out more from the new website we’ve launched as a home for UK Copyright Literacy activities.

My final paper focused on my work as Chair of the CILIP Information Literacy Group, and I delivered this with fellow ILG Committee member, Geoff Walton, from Northumbria University. UK Information Literacy Advocacy: reaching out beyond the tower, explored the advocacy work ILG have embarked on in the last year to build up links with organisations outside the library sector and to promote information literacy to groups such as Trade Unions, businesses, schools and public libraries. I also spoke about the work we’ve done with TeenTech to launch a Research and Information Literacy award.

Congratulations to Sonja Špiranec and Serap Kurbanoğlu, the founders of ECIL for another fantastic conference and for making me feel part of a global network of information literacy. I returned inspired and energized and would urge others from the UK to try to get to this conference next year, not least because it will be in another beautiful European city, Prague.

November 3rd, 2015|Conferences, copyright, Digital Literacy, Research Skills|Comments Off|

Don’t just copy: copy it right!

In a few weeks LSE will be rolling out a fleet on new MFDs (multi-functional devices) that allow printing, photocopying and scanning and I have been advising the project team on copyright issues. As part of this project IMT have a range of new marketing materials to promote copyright education across the School including posters, postcards and fortune cookies! This project coincides with some work I’ve been doing with my counterpart at the University of Kent, Chris Morrison, to investigate levels of copyright literacy among UK librarians and related professionals. Last week we wrote a blog post on why copyright is a fundamental part of digital and information literacy on the CILIP blog. We feel copyright education is often perceived as being dry, boring and all about telling people what they can’t do. We are trying to change that to equip people with the knowledge and skills so they can see how understanding copyright and licensing might be empowering. We worked together earlier this year to develop a new game-based approach to copyright education which has been transforming our copyright training sessions. Tomorrow at 2pm there is an opportunity for LSE staff to play Copyright the Card Game as part of an IMT Tech Talk. There is still time to book a place, so if you are interested email IMT.comms@lse.ac.uk. If you would like to find out more about copyright then also look out for the new guides to Copyright for LSE staff which are available from LTI from the end of the week. And do look at our guides to copyright pages. Queries and bespoke training is available on request. And don’t forget – don’t just copy – copy it right!