Libraries announces July workshops for scholarly communications, copyright; Penn State, June 29, 2023

Penn State ; Libraries announces July workshops for scholarly communications, copyright

"Beginning July 11, Penn State University Libraries will offer virtual workshops on scholarly communications and copyright topics for students, faculty and staff. The workshops include a two-part Introduction to Copyright, a session on Penn State’s open access policy, and a workshop about copyright for authors of theses and dissertations.

Registration is free but required for all workshops. To register, please follow the links listed with each session, or contact Ana Enriquez, scholarly communications outreach librarian, at enriquez@psu.edu."

The future of open educational resources; Community College Daily, April 27, 2023

James Glapa-Grossklag is dean of educational technology, learning resources and online education at College of the Canyons (California).

Una Daly is director of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) at Open Education Global, Community College Daily; The future of open educational resources

"The future of OER is that it will not be the next big thing, but rather that OER will be a common way for students to freely access information, a tool in the enrollment management toolkit, and a commitment to equitable outcomes and collaborative teaching."

Free textbooks? It could soon be a reality at California’s community colleges; Capital Public Radio, March 14, 2023

Alyssa Story, Carmen González. Capital Public Radio; Free textbooks? It could soon be a reality at California’s community colleges

"California college students spend on average $938 per year on textbooks and materials, according to the California Student Aid Commission’s 2021-2022 Student Expenses and Resources Survey. 

One idea under consideration by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office is to fund community colleges to produce their own textbooks. The system must decide how to spend $115 million in state funds set aside to reduce the burden of textbook costs. Every community college will receive $20,000 to design zero-textbook-cost programs and an additional $180,000 to implement them. Some colleges will also get larger, competitive grants. 

Colleges could spend the money on anything from publishing their own textbooks to using free, publicly available textbooks — known as “open educational resources” — created by professors at other schools. They could also simply give some students money to buy traditional textbooks."

Reducing the Choice Between a Textbook and Your Next Meal; UCFToday, March 6, 2023

James Paradiso,  UCFToday; Reducing the Choice Between a Textbook and Your Next Meal

"With textbooks and other required course materials proven to be costly, UCF faculty, staff and students have come up with creative, yet practical, solutions through the creation of Open Educational Resources (OER), a hub for free teaching, learning and research materials.

“There has always been a need for open educational resources in higher education,” says Nicole Lapeyrouse, a UCF chemistry professor and 2023 Affordable Instructional Materials (AIM) High Impact Award winner. “By adopting or creating OER, you are able to further support students by making your courses more affordable and helping reduce the financial burden on students.”

Isabella Griffin, a student in Lapeyrouse’s Chemistry Fundamentals I course, confirms those benefits.

“The free textbook has helped ease the financial burden associated with being a college student.,” she says. “Sometimes, high prices prevent students from having textbook access — to the detriment of student learning. I greatly appreciate the free and open access to [the Chemistry Fundamentals eBook]. It has increased my ability to access relevant and useful resources related to class.”

“From my own personal experience with not always having access to affordable resources,” says Lapeyrouse, “I wanted to prevent students from having to make a tough call on [whether to] buy the required resources or pay a bill.”

According to the 2022 Student Textbook and Course Materials Survey conducted by Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC), 53% of students from Florida’s public higher education institutions indicated they did not purchase a required textbook for financial reasons. Forty-four percent took fewer courses. Thirty-eight percent did not register for a specific course. And 24% dropped a course due to the high cost of textbooks."

This VCU Libraries initiative has saved VCU students more than $7M in textbook costs; VCU Libraries, December 1, 2022

Brian McNeill, VCU News; This VCU Libraries initiative has saved VCU students more than $7M in textbook costs

"“One of the things that’s been most exciting to me since coming to VCU is just the interest [in open and affordable content] from faculty,” said Jessica Kirschner, the open educational resources librarian who leads VCU Libraries’ textbook affordability efforts. “We’ve had a record number of applications for our grant program over the past two years, which blew me out of the water. Our faculty are engaged and interested and by and large realize the impact that this work can have on their students.”

Through the initiative, Kirschner works to assist in the creation of new resources, as well as locating, adopting and adapting existing course materials, including library materials and open educational resources.

Open course materials not only support students by eliminating costs, they also can enable better learning experiences and optimize academic outcomes for instructors and students, Kirschner said. Rather than relying on a textbook, she said, a professor can draw from various open resources to customize their class in a way that makes students more engaged.

“When I talk to faculty, I always like to say: ‘Why form your class around the textbook when you can form a textbook around your class?’” she said."

A professor found his exam questions posted online. He’s suing the students responsible for copyright infringement.; The Washington Post, March 16, 2022

Jaclyn Peiser, The Washington Post ; A professor found his exam questions posted online. He’s suing the students responsible for copyright infringement.

"Now, Berkovitz is suing the unknown students from the Orange, Calif., university for copyright infringement. In a lawsuit filed last week in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, the professor alleges the students “infringed Berkovitz’s exclusive right to reproduce, make copies, distribute, or create derivative works by publishing the Midterm Exam and Final Exam on the Course Hero website without Berkovitz’s permission.”"

Learning the Art of Civil Discourse; Ole Miss University of Mississippi News, October 22, 2021

 STAFF REPORT,  Ole Miss University of Mississippi News; Learning the Art of Civil Discourse

Students apply ethical theory for decision-making and policy

"The Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Mississippi is offering two events in the next few weeks exploring the ethical issues of timely topics.

Just Conversations is a fun event run by students from the Ethical Policy Debates class to explore ethical issues and think about potential solutions through low-key conversation on two hot-button issues. The event is an in-person reception from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Monday (Oct. 25) in the Bryant Hall Gallery. Register by 5 p.m. Friday (Oct. 22) at https://forms.gle/xCS1QNTpZvnvtxQv9.

The second event, The Great Debate of 2021, poses the question “Should patents be waived on COVID-19 vaccines to increase global vaccination rates?” The virtual event on Nov. 11 features presentation of a debate followed by a Q&A between the teams, expert panelists and the audience. All are welcome to attend virtually, especially members of the campus community.

“The Dialogue and Deliberation Initiative events, both Just Conversations and The Great Debate of 2021, bring people together to discuss ethical problems that involve multiple perspectives, competing interests and complex empirical issues in a civil format for productive outcomes,” said Deborah Mower, a UM associate professor of philosophy and the Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Hume Bryant Associate Professor of Ethics.

“We will be focusing on three topics from the slate of fall 2021 Regional Ethics Bowl cases.”

Ole Miss students are conducting research to prepare for discussions about rock climbing on federally protected indigenous cultural sites, the Disney company image and COVID-19 vaccine patents.

“There is no better educational model than the Ethics Bowl for teaching students how to apply ethical theory for decision-making and policy while at the same time fostering skills crucial for civil dialogue,” Mower said."

Will Online College Courses Help Reduce Textbook Prices?; Forbes, August 7, 2020

Robert Farrington, Forbes; Will Online College Courses Help Reduce Textbook Prices?

"Sympathetic professors often don’t even require textbooks at all, or they make it easy for students to access materials online — and this was even before the pandemic took hold. 

Movement To Open Educational Resources (OER)

Schools who planned to transition online this year due to Covid-19 had the entire summer to figure out ways to present their materials, whether that includes Zoom meetings, message boards, their own platforms, or the many other options available. It’s likely that some of them will have moved a lot of their course material entirely to the web, which could eliminate the need for physical textbooks altogether for some classes. 

But there was a major move toward free college textbooks that predates the pandemic, according to Brian Galvin, the Chief Academic Officer for Varsity Tutors. Galvin says that the biggest lever colleges have to pull is the popularity of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, which has seen professors choose to teach courses using e-textbooks that are essentially "open-source" and made available by nonprofits that aim to reduce the cost of learning."

Internet Archive to Publishers: Drop ‘Needless’ Copyright Lawsuit and Work with Us; Publishers Weekly, July 23, 2020

Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly; Internet Archive to Publishers: Drop ‘Needless’ Copyright Lawsuit and Work with Us

"During a 30-minute Zoom press conference on July 22, Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle urged the four major publishers suing over the organization’s book scanning efforts to consider settling the dispute in the boardroom rather than the courtroom.

“Librarians, publishers, authors, all of us should be working together during this pandemic to help teachers, parents, and especially students,” Kahle implored. “I call on the executives of Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House to come together with us to help solve the challenging problems of access to knowledge during this pandemic, and to please drop this needless lawsuit.”

Kahle’s remarks came as part of a panel, which featured a range of speakers explaining and defending the practice of Controlled Digital Lending (CDL), the legal theory under which the Internet Archive has scanned and is making available for borrowing a library of some 1.4 million mostly 20th century books."

Online Teaching During Pandemic Raises Copyright Concerns; Bloomberg Law, April 3, 2020

Matthew Bultman, Bloomberg Law; Online Teaching During Pandemic Raises Copyright Concerns

"The sudden shift to online teaching is raising a host of copyright questions for educators...

Allaying Teacher Fears

Hoping to provide guidance, a group of copyright specialists at colleges, universities and other organizations last month wrote a statement on fair use that was signed or endorsed by more than 200 experts. It has circulated among grade school educators as well. 

Making course materials available to students during the pandemic will “almost always be a fair use,” the group wrote in the statement. Showing full-length movies or television shows can be more tricky, and the group encouraged instructors to use video through licensed services whenever possible. 

“One of the reasons that this statement was put together was to address and allay some of the fears that faculty, students, and librarians are facing when rapidly shifting to moving their courses online,” said Sara Benson, a copyright librarian and assistant professor at the University of Illinois.

The group also put together a list of video and other content that publishers have made available for free—called “Vendor Love In The Time Of Covid”—during the outbreak. Copyright specialists have also held informational “Virtual Copyright Office Hours” on Zoom. 

“We want to make copyright the least of your concerns,” Courtney said. “Be worried about your students, their health, their welfare, because that’s most important.”"

Internet Archive offers 1.4 million copyrighted books for free online; Ars Technica, March 28, 2020

Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica; Internet Archive offers 1.4 million copyrighted books for free online

Massive online library project is venturing into uncharted legal waters.

""The Internet Archive will suspend waitlists for the 1.4 million (and growing) books in our lending library by creating a National Emergency Library to serve the nation’s displaced learners," the Internet Archive wrote in a Tuesday post. "This suspension will run through June 30, 2020, or the end of the US national emergency, whichever is later."

The Tuesday announcement generated significant public interest, with almost 20,000 new users signing up on Tuesday and Wednesday. In recent days, the Open Library has been "lending" 15,000 to 20,000 books per day.

“The library system, because of our national emergency, is coming to aid those that are forced to learn at home,” said Internet Archive founder Brewster Kahle. The Internet Archive says the program will ensure students are able to get access to books they need to continue their studies from home during the coronavirus lockdown."

Sharing the love: OSU librarian works to increase educational resources for students and faculty; O'Colly, January 16, 2020

Nick Oldenburg, O'Colly; Sharing the love: OSU librarian works to increase educational resources for students and faculty

"As the cost of textbooks rises, students are forced to either comply with textbook companies and buy their product or turn to their classmates and share resources...

Christian Maldonado is also a junior, but he hasn’t had a class with an OER. He said that while he thinks they would help him in college, he can see why some classes still don’t use them.

“I can see points on both sides,” Maldonado said. “The author who wrote [the textbook] is selling a product, so they are entitled to set the price.”"

Provost’s office accepting OER grant applications; The Pitt News, January 16, 2020

Jon Moss and Benjamin Nigrosh, The Pitt News; Provost’s office accepting OER grant applications

"The University is accepting proposals from faculty until Feb. 19 for projects to adapt, adopt or create open education resources for current course offerings.

The third iteration of the funding program is part of a series of initiatives run by Provost Ann Cudd’s office to encourage the use of OERs. OERs are course materials like textbooks, lab notebooks and videos that are free for Pitt students and allow for legal adaptation and open use with attribution to the original author. They are typically free or less expensive than traditional textbooks.

Faculty can apply for smaller grants, ranging from $500 to $2,000, to adopt or adapt an open textbook or OER course component such as online homework, lab manuals or support materials. Larger grants, between $2,000 and $5,000, are available to support individual or team-based development of open textbooks, or combining an open textbook with course-specific development."

Buying textbooks: 'A sense of desperation'; The Exponent (Purdue University), January 23, 2020

Joseph Ching, The Exponent (Purdue University); Buying textbooks: 'A sense of desperation'

"[Justin] Race [director of the Purdue University Press] said a major misconception is that people who purchase a physical book are buying the actual book itself. By this logic, online content would be inherently free.

“It’s much better to think of it as, ‘I am buying the intellectual property,’” Race said. “The distilled expertise by a scholar, the copy editing, proofreading, the design, the cover design — and not so much for the paper and binding.”

Purdue Libraries is in the early stages of its Open Bytes project, a partnership with the College of Engineering to create educational resources accessible to the world. These resources include textbooks, lecture notes and case studies available beginning mid-2020, according to a University press release."

North Dakota University System to host open education resource conference in Fargo in March; Grand Forks Herald, January 7, 2020

Sydney Mook, Grand Forks Herald; North Dakota University System to host open education resource conference in Fargo in March

"In conjunction with Open Education Week, the North Dakota University System will hold an open education resources conference on Friday, March 6, at the Holiday Inn in Fargo, the university system announced Monday, Jan. 6.

The full-day program will include an overview of open education resources at a national level, a panel of representatives from UND, Mayville State University and Valley City State University who have implemented OERs, and research conducted by UND professor, Virginia Clinton, regarding the effects of using open textbooks and student learning outcomes.

Open educational resources, also known as OER and sometimes referred to as open-access resources, allow students to save money on textbooks through a free online textbook."

Ludacris, Tom Luse, More to Speak at Intellectual Property Master Class; Georgia State University, November 6, 2019

Kelundra Smith, Georgia State University;

Ludacris, Tom Luse, More to Speak at Intellectual Property Master Class

"Entertainer and entrepreneur Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, and Tom Luse, former executive producer of “The Walking Dead,” will participate in “Intellectual Property Essentials for Creatives: It’s All About Content” presented by the Entertainment, Sports and Media Law Initiative and the Creative Media Industries Institute (CMII) on Nov. 16.

This full-day master class aims to teach students, attorneys, artists and industry professionals the particulars of intellectual property protection with a focus on content development and the distribution of music, television and film in the digital world...

“The expansion of Atlanta’s entertainment industry made this the perfect time to focus on content,” said Mo Ivory, director of the Entertainment, Sports and Media Law Initiative. “Understanding how intellectual property laws apply in music and television versus on social media is critical in the digital age. As more content developers move to Georgia, we need attorneys who know how to advise clients and artists who know how to advocate for themselves.”"

Faculty Council reexamines lost intellectual property rights policy; The Ithacan, April 24, 2019

Ashley Stalnecker, The Ithacan; 

Faculty Council reexamines lost intellectual property rights policy

"Peter Rothbart, professor in the Department of Music Theory, History and Composition, said that when he was the chair of the Faculty Council before Swensen took over the position in Fall 2016, the Intellectual Property Policy Committee extensively researched documents from other academic institutions and asked for input on the policy from staff, students, faculty and administrators.

“The resulting document was among the most liberal and supportive of creators of content and invention offered by any academic institution,” Rothbart said."

Faculty Council discusses intellectual property rights; The Ithacan, April 3, 2019

Ashley Stalnecker, The Ithacan; Faculty Council discusses intellectual property rights

"Costa said the current policy on student work at the college differs from the typical policies of higher-education institutions. Currently, the college deems any work created by a student in a class under the jurisdiction of a professor to be the property of the faculty member or the college. Costa said this means that if the faculty memberearned any royalties, they would be required to share it with the college but not with the student who created it.

Costa said that normally among higher-education institutions, student-created work is the copyright of the student. In this case, the student would earn any royalties associated with the work. For commissioned work, the person who made the commission would own the copyright. Because the work was paid for, the person who paid for it owns the work."

Required Reading: Appeals Court Instructs District Court for Second Time on Fair Use of Course Materials; Lexology, November 30, 2018

McDermott Will & Emery - Jodi Benassi, Lexology; Required Reading: Appeals Court Instructs District Court for Second Time on Fair Use of Course Materials

 

"The US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit vacated a district court’s judgment for a second time, finding that the lower court misinterpreted its instructions on remand and failed to give each excerpt of the copyrighted works the holistic analysis the Copyright Act demands. Cambridge University Press, et al. v. J.L. Albert, et al., Case No. 16-15726 (11th Cir. Oct. 19, 2018) (Pryor, J)."

Why Are College Textbooks So Expensive?; Business Insider, November 27, 2018

Video, Business Insider; Why Are College Textbooks So Expensive?

"Almost 80% of the textbook industry is dominated by 5 publishing companies. They use restrictive codes and re-publish new versions of textbooks every 2 to 3 years. Due to these tactics, textbook costs overall have risen 67% from 2008 to 2018."