Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning

Multimedia resources
Increasingly, teaching staff wish to use audio and video resources within
the VLE. In the past, such items may have been deposited in the library
collection and made available to students to borrow or use within the
library. However, digital technology facilitates the distribution of this
material far more easily. A variety of video and audio formats exist,
which allow material to be downloaded or accessed via the Internet. An
increasing amount of audio and video collections is available on the
Internet and staff may wish to use these resources in their teaching. In
these cases, follow the instructions for using websites and where possible
advise them to link to this material rather than downloading it. Digital
sound or video collections may exist within your institution that can be
used in teaching. For example, the London School of Economics and
Political Science occasionally record and digitise public lectures held at
the School, which staff are able to incorporate into their course website.
Digital video collections may also be licensed for use at your institution.
For example, Education Media Online (http://www.emol.ac.uk/),
another service from Edina, is funded by JISC and is a set of film and
video collections which subscribing institutions can use freely for
teaching, learning and research.
Generally, ‘born digital’ audio and video collections are less
problematic and difficulties usually occur when staff wish to use existing
multimedia resources, such as excerpts from films, television broadcasts
or sound recordings. Any pre-recorded videos, DVDs or sound
recordings purchased by individuals have associated licensing
agreements which forbid them being shown outside the home. In the UK,
copyright permission is required for even short extracts. Some small
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Electronic Resources in the Virtual Learning Environment
production companies will grant permission for their material to be used
for free, but others will charge a fee, which can be based on the length
of the extract.
In the UK, television and radio broadcasts can be recorded for
educational use by institutions that hold a specific licence called the
Educational Recording Agency (ERA) Licence. The licence allows TV
and radio excerpts to be copied into digital format. An excerpt may be
shown but not edited to incorporate other material. Any excerpt must be
clearly identified with the programme title, date of recording and
channel, together with a statement saying it was recorded under the
terms of the ERA Licence. Some UK higher education institutions are
now distributing this material from the VLE, which is interpreted to
mean ‘classroom use’. To comply with the licence, the material is not
distributed beyond the university campus.
Using teaching materials in the VLE
Lecturers frequently wish to make their own teaching resources available
to students in the virtual learning environment. Students appreciate
being able to download lecture notes or PowerPoint slides when they
have missed a lecture or for revision purposes. Teaching staff find that
the VLE provides a convenient place to deposit these resources and
means that students are less likely to come knocking on their doors when
they miss a lecture. Some teaching staff are concerned that making these
resources available may discourage students from attending lectures, but
generally this does not seem to be a widespread problem. Just think for
yourself if you ever miss a seminar and a colleague brings you the
handout – very few PowerPoint slides truly make sense unless you have
attended the event, and it has been said that the lecturer who can be
replaced by PointPoint slides probably deserves to be replaced! Seriously
though, to counteract this problem, lecturers often only make these
resources available after the event has taken place, and generally only
make a lecture outline, rather than full notes, available.
From a copyright perspective you might think that there are very few
issues associated with making teaching resources available from the
VLE. However, do bear in mind that staff do sometimes use resources
such as images or even video within PowerPoint presentations that they
don’t own the rights to and may have found on the Internet. Material
that is shown within a lecture is more difficult to oversee, but once it has
been uploaded into the VLE it is more visible. It is advisable for library
staff in conjunction with other copyright experts in the institution to
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Copyright and licensing digital texts
produce copyright guidelines to ensure PowerPoint and other teaching
materials are not infringing. Examples of universities who have produced
such guidelines are Curtin University of Technology
14
in Australia, Penn
State University
15
in the US and the London School of Economics and
Political Science
16
in the UK.
Under UK law, special provision is made for copying for examination
purposes. For the purposes of setting, communicating or answering the
questions in closed exams anything may be done with copyright
materials (except for music) without permission. Many institutions are
increasingly using assessment tools available in the VLE, such as quizzes
or surveys that are available in WebCT, or specific online assessment
tools such as QuestionMark Perception. For these purposes, copyrighted
material can often be included.
The need for copyright clearance
In general you should assume that you will need permission to download
and reuse an item within the VLE, unless:
■
the items are out of copyright;
■
the individual who wishes to use the material is the copyright holder;
or
■
your organisation is the copyright holder.
You should be wary of academic staff publications where they are the
author of the material, for example book chapters or journal articles, but
not necessarily the copyright owner. Often they will have assigned
certain rights to their publisher, so it is important to check their
publishing contract or the terms of agreement. If they wish to use material
that a colleague has produced, where copyright will lie with your
university or organisation, they should be advised that it is courteous to
discuss this with the colleague before using the material. Remember, they
will also require permission to adapt material produced by someone else.