Easy Access Regulation: copyright awareness among lecturers
Colleague Jacqueline van Rooijen has been checking semester 1 courses in Brightspace for copyright violations at FGGA. This was necessary because each year, the university is required to pay a fee to the representative of academic publishers (UvO Foundation). In general, FGGA lecturers tend to comply with the regulations and the faculty has only had to pay a relatively small percentage up until now. Maya Vos: 'We are doing well, compliments to all lecturers, but there is always room for improvement.'
It only makes sense, of course, to check with some regularity whether we are still keeping to the agreements and refresh the rules on this subject. We have taken a closer look at the posting of scanned parts of books and articles because of the existing restrictions on posting scanned content, such as the number of pages/words of a book.
As per the Easy Access regulation, short or medium length acquisitions may be posted in Brightspace. Regardless of the source of the acquisitions, all short and medium acquisitions are covered by the buyout fee paid by the university. However, this fee is based on an estimate of actual usage, so linking to information instead of scanning and uploading it will help in the negotiations to reduce the buyout fee.
The official recommendation: only post acquisitions/pdfs in Brightspace when you are unable to link to the article. If the journal can be accessed through the Catalogue, link to the Catalogue, or link to where the article can be found on the internet.
Teachers disregard the LOR
When Brightspace was introduced, it was officially decided that all copyrighted materials should be placed in the Learning Object Repository (LOR). However, this process appears to be too complicated since lecturers overwhelmingly tend to ignore the LOR and post documents directly in the course. This also seems to be the case at FGGA, but Jacqueline has also noticed several links to the LOR that did not work properly. It is likely that the LOR will soon be discontinued.
The majority of FGGA lecturers work hard to make sure that their subject matter interesting, but also varied and attractive to students. Videos, quotes, graphics, and photo materials are used for this purpose. Van Rooijen: 'Going through the courses was extremely fascinating. More than once I lingered to read through an article or a Power Point presentation.'
A Power Point presentation made by the teacher themselves is their own work and the copyright rests with its creator. However, when making the presentation, protected visual material from third parties is also often used in the form of photos, images and other material taken from the internet. If the source is acknowledged or links are used, the third-party materials are covered by the right to quote and are free to use. However, some restrictions still apply, for example, do not use too many items from the same source. A maximum of three images from the same source applies to avoid having to pay a fee to the UvO foundation. Several companies exist that monitor these kinds of infringements online, however, this does not include secure environments like Brightspace (such as your own website).
The official recommendation: link to (YouTube) videos and mention the source when using copyrighted visual materials such as photos and other images in presentations and in the Brightspace environment.
More information can be found on the website of the Copyright Information Office. Please contact UB Copyright Expert Erna Sattler if you have any questions. She is also willing to give a presentation on the subject.
As FGGA faculty, we would like to continue to comply with the copyright protection regulations and make the most of the options available to us in order to minimise the costs for the university in this area. The survey of semester 1 clearly shows that we are already off to a good start but there is always room for improvement.
June 2023, by Jacqueline van Rooijen and Maya Vos (OSC)