Co-Chair’s Welcome and Update
We have continued to see a growing interest in copyright and online learning as many educational institutions have continued some teaching online or in a blended format following the pandemic. The report outlines the activities of the group and we are honoured to continue to act as the Co-Chairs for this group. While the group’s activities have centred on our ‘Copyright in a time of uncertainty’ webinars we have also worked on various projects and initiatives outlined in more detail below.
Jane Secker and Chris Morrison ALT CoOL SIG Co-chairs
Overview of activities 2022
During 2022 the group committee continued to meet regularly (see Appendix 1 for members) and held 3 meetings (March, June and September). We highlighted several areas of activity for the group and formed several working groups to coordinate our activities in the following area:
- Accessibility and copyright – we produced a comprehensive document, discussing and justifying (by licences and copyright exceptions) the use of Blackboard Ally for making accessible copies, including by students who are not disabled. This was published as a blog post. We also produced an overview of how to produce accessible scans for CLA licensed readings, covering software used, scanning and how to improve scans, and adding accessibility features. This was published as a blog post and was also the topic of an ALT Webinar (Webinar 49: 6 May 2022).
- Copyright education and training resources – this group curated a list of resources for IFLA on UK copyright education and training in 2021 and the list was subsequently made available online via the ALT blog. In 2022 the group started work on creating a list of copyright good practice, organised using a taxonomy. This work is still ongoing.
- The ALT Ethical framework was launched in 2021 and there is a small working group keeping a watching brief on this and feeding into the developments.
Report on events
Copyright and Online Learning Webinars
- Our webinars continue to be hosted on the ALT YouTube Channel and our website.
- Number of webinars: 57 in total since March 2020 including 11 webinars held in 2022
- Topics covered: Confessions of a Learning Technologist, IP Education: ideas, identity and impact, The IP Education Framework (presented by the IPO), open textbooks, Navigating Copyright for Libraries – interviews with authors from the IFLA Open Access book.
- Evaluation report summary: In September 2021 we undertook a short survey to collect feedback on our webinar series to find out what people thought of the topics we had covered, the frequency of the webinars and the impact they might have had on organisations and individuals. We are planning to update the summary report with a follow up survey early in 2023.
Icepops 2022
The Icepops conference ran for the first time since 2019 as an in person conference on 8th September 2022. Over 70 people attended the day which was held at the Catholic Chaplaincy at the University of Oxford. Keynotes were given by Professor Emily Hudson, Douglas McCarthy and Dr Andrea Wallace. The presentations and further details are available on the Icepops 2022 website. Overall the day was deemed to be an overwhelming success and was supported by the CILIP Information Literacy Group. An evening social event took place on the day of the event and we organised tours of the Bodleian Library and the Museum of Natural History on 9th September 2022. Icepops raised over £2000 worth of profit for the CILIP Information Literacy Group who underwrite and support the event.
Fair Dealing week 2022
A series of activities and events for Fair Use / Fair Dealing week were run in February 2021 which to date has been largely a US and Canadian event. The UK Fair Dealing launch event was held online on Monday 21st February hosted by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies as well as a series of other events that ran throughout the week organised by SCURL, University of Kent and the Bloomsbury Learning Exchange (University of London). A summary of the events with links to the recordings is available on the website.
Other conferences
Jane and Chris presented about Copyright and Online Learning and the work of the SIG at a wide range of external conferences including the following events:
- LILAC Conference, Manchester, March 2022
- OER Conference panel, April 2022
- ABC Conference, Canada May 2022
- DeCRIS Multiplier Event, Sofia, Bulgaria, May 2022
- Playful Learning Conference keynote, July 2022
- FORCE 11: Scholarly Communications event, July 2022
- Teach for the Future conference, Greece, July 2022
- Masaryck University, Czech Republic, September 2022
Social Media and Communications
We set up a Twitter account and a Mailchimp newsletter / mailing list in 2021. There are currently 224 followers to the twitter account.
The Mailchimp newsletter had 94 subscribers when it was migrated to a new JISCmail list in line with ALT policy in November 2022. There are now 156 members of this list which is used for all group communication. Mailchimp is still used to format the newsletter.
We also continue to use LIS-Copyseek (a closed list with over 600 members) to promote our events and also the Copyrightliteracy.org website. The group created a logo and also have t-shirts available to purchase in the ALT Store.
Collaboration and networking
The group recognises there are many existing groups in the copyright space and so has tried to work in collaboration with as many of these as possible. The organisations include:
- Scottish Confederation of University & Research Libraries (SCURL) – several committee members are also members of the SCURL Copyright and Legal Matters group
- LACA (Libraries and Archives Coalition) – Jane and Chris gave a presentation to the group in December 2021 and Jane remains a member of this group and keeps them up to date with ALT CoOL SIG activities.
Appendix 1: Committee members
Co-Chairs: Jane Secker (City, University of London) and Chris Morrison (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)
Co-Secretaries: Jenny Greene (University of Bangor), Caroline Lloyd (University of Nottingham)
Events coordinator: Elizabeth Charles (Birkbeck, University of London), Shazia Arif (Brunel, University of London)
Marketing and communications officer: Greg Walters (Glasgow University)
Legal expert: Emily Hudson (King’s College London)
International networking: Kyle Courtney (Harvard University), Irene Barranco Garcia (University of Greenwich)
Other Officers: Samantha Ahern (UCL – stepped down December 2022), Stephen Penton (City, University of London), Deborah Ferns (University of Strathclyde), Chris Jones (University of Reading), Kate Vasili (Middlesex University), Neil Sprunt (University of Manchester), Hannah Crago (University of Essex), Erica Wine (Coventry University), Stephanie Charlie Farley (University of Edinburgh), Lorna Campbell (University of Edinburgh), Bart Meletti (Learning on Screen).
Copyright Literacy 