It might not be yours

Both the Chronicle of Higher Ed and Inside Higher Ed are running stories about an AAUP warning that faculty who give MOOC-type courses may not end up owning the content.  According to the Chronicle, the AAUP will be starting a campaign to clarify ownership of faculty intellectual property.

The Chronicle story is at http://chronicle.com/article/AAUP-Sees-MOOCs-as-Spawning/139743

The Inside Higher Ed version is at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/06/13/aaup-session-centers-intellectual-property-and-academic-freedom-online-education-age

You may think it's yours but...

HathiTrust

Inside Higher Ed today carries a story* indicating that the American Library Assn. is supporting various universities (including UC) and their position in the HathiTrust case.  “HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.”  [See http://www.hathitrust.org/ ] This is a case involving charges of copyright infringement by an organization called the Authors Guild.  We have posted entries about this case before.  The purpose of the HathiTrust is said to be “preserving and providing access to digitized book and journal content from the partner library collections. This includes both in copyright and public domain materials digitized by Google, the Internet Archive, and Microsoft, as well as through in-house initiatives. The partners aim to build a comprehensive archive of published literature from around the world and develop shared strategies for managing and developing their digital and print holdings in a collaborative way. The primary community that HathiTrust serves are the members (faculty, students, and users) of its partners libraries, but the materials in HathiTrust are available to all to the extent permitted by law and contracts, providing the published record as a public good to users around the world.” Generally, faculty who use modern technology in teaching and research have an interest in this case and in more open, rather than restricted, access to materials in digital format.

*http://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2013/06/05/librarians-and-colleges-file-briefs-backing-hathitrust

Regents Meeting Coming Next Week

The Regents are meeting March 13-14 – Wednesday-Thursday of next week.  The agenda is only partly online.  At this point it just lists topics without the supporting materials.  One March 13 item is the UCLA Health Sciences Teaching and Learning Center which we are assured won’t cost the campus a penny.  Of course, we know the Regents will carefully undertake a review of the business plan using outside independent expertise and will be monitoring the project after it is built to ensure it is a total success, just as they did, and surely will do, with the Grand Hotel:

http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/gb.pdf

They will also be Working Smarter – or at least reviewing plans of the administration to do so:

http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/fin.pdf

There will be a review of something called systemwide “social fundraising.”  Yours truly is not exactly sure what that is but Googling suggests it has to do with raising money on the web:

http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/edpol.pdf

In the afternoon of March 13, there is a lot of closed activity - including the search for a new UC president and collective bargaining issues.*  Behind the closed doors, there will some discussion of legal actions:  (selection below of cases that have been mentioned in earlier postings on this blog)

• AIME, et al. v. REGENTS – Case Settled and Judgment in Favor of Regents Entered – Challenge to Streaming of Copyrighted Videos for Classes – Los Angeles

• AUTHORS GUILD, et al. v. HATHITRUST, et al. – Appeal and Motion for Fees Denied – Copyright Infringement – Systemwide 

• BAKER, et al. v. KATEHI, et al. – Settlement Approved by Court – Constitutional and State Law Claims Arising from Pepper Spraying Incident – Davis

• CALDWELL, et al. v. REGENTS – Motion to Stay Trial Court Proceedings Granted – Challenge to Sale of Japanese Garden – Los Angeles

• FELARCA, et al. v. BIRGENEAU, et al. – Motions to Dismiss Granted in Part – First and Fourth Amendment and Conspiracy Claims Arising from Police Response to Campus Protests – Berkeley

• PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA v. PATRICK HARRAN – Preliminary Hearing Concluded – Felony Criminal Charges for Willful Violation of Cal-OSHA Regulations – Los Angeles [This is the lab fire case.]

• REUTERS AMERICA LLC v. REGENTS – Petition Granted in Part – Petition under California Public Records Act to Compel Release of Performance Records for Private Equity Funds – Office of the President

The full list of cases can be found at:

http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/finx.pdf

In an open session, there will be a review of UCPath– the new payroll system that is being implemented.

http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/audit.pdf

Moving on to March 14...  There is an item entitled “Change to Appointment Terms for Employees Subject to Mandatory Retirement Age Requirements."  Mandatory retirement is not allowed under law except for certain top manager types.  This item: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/comp.pdf  appears to be a holdover from the January meeting at which an end to mandatory retirement was proposed: http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/jan13/g2.pdf

 

There will be a recommendation on “Continuation of Tuition Surcharge” which I assume involves no change in tuition since it is listed as a consent item:**

http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/fin1.pdf

The full agenda is at:

http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13.html

*UPDATE: The search process for the new UC president is described in a UC press release:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/article/29127

**UPDATE: The continuation of the surcharge refers to a surcharge imposed when the Regents lost some litigation relating to professional school fees.
http://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/mar13/f6.pdf

Concerns about Justice Dept. intervention in university library electronic reserves

Inside Higher Ed today has an article concerning a matter on which we have posted in the past.  Increasingly, faculty put material on reserve for students.  Typically, such material is not available to the general public; some kind of password or course registration is required.  Publishers have sued regarding copyright violation in a case involving Georgia State U.  So far, the library there has prevailed.

Apparently, the U.S. Dept. of Justice wants to intervene in the case, and the suspicion is that the intervention will be on the side of the publishers who are appealing a lower court ruling.  You can read the details at:
http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/02/01/library-supporters-worry-us-may-back-publishers-copyright-case

Not surprisingly, university librarians are distressed at this possible intervention.  One librarian notes that in olden times (not so long ago), paper format reserves were kept on library shelves for students to read and no one complained. 

Bottom line: University librarians are fearful that the Obama administration - despite its general enthusiasm for technology and education - is about to do them wrong:

More on the Stream

The Daily Bruin today has a report that UCLA got another favorable decision regarding the use of live-streaming videos for course purposes. Live-streaming means essentially what you see on websites such as YouTube, i.e., a video (or audio) that you click on and it plays from the web.  The video is not a file that is stored on your computer.  The analogy would be that watching a TV broadcast is similar to live-streaming.  Owning a DVD and playing it on your TV is like having a stored file that you play.

Background: There was a prior case in which the university was sued over alleged copyright violation involved in live-streaming for course use.  Briefly, UCLA halted such live-streaming, causing an interruption to classes that were using it.  But the university decided to fight the case and resumed the live-streaming.  In the case that the Bruin now reports, a refiled complaint against UCLA was rejected on a legal technicality, i.e., the merits were not decided.  You can find the article at http://www.dailybruin.com/article/2012/11/court-dismisses-copyright-lawsuit-against-ucla-a-second-time.

If you are using live-streaming, you should know that there is a simple alternative.  Presumably, you have a file in some format (wmv, flv, etc.) that is being used for the streaming.  You can simply provide the video file to students through your course website.  They can then download it and play it.  You should set access to your course website such that it is private, i.e., that only enrolled students can access files in it.  There is, in fact, an advantage in simply providing access to your video file in that manner.  The students can download at their convenience.  Once they have the file, they are not dependent on internet connections or other vagaries of the web to see it.