JISC

This session provided an overview of recent international developments in IPR and licensing.

Rachel Bruce – JISC SURF partnering on copyright

This talk proved an overview of the work with SURF which has been going on from some years, and in particular, resulting in 5 work packages.

Motivations for JISC/SURF collaborative work:

• JISC and SURF very similar organisations. SURF is based in the Netherlands and does similar things to JISC, in particular DARENET - role out of repositories.
• Main initiative was about balancing rights – and in particular asserting different rights.
• SURF far less adverse to risk to JISC
• Interested in exploring different relationships – named ZWOLLE group – led by SURF but with international collaboration (Australia was also part of ZWOLLE Group). Idea to bring various stakeholders around the table. Seven principles which came out of work which helped to guide JISC. One of which is copyright management.

Outputs:

• Five work packages – Publishing Agreements – driven by JISC Legal and SURF. List of elementary rights drawn up. Main focus scholarly communications particularly focus on access and reuse. List of elementary rights – which have been inputted into the Copyright Toolbox and in particular resulted in the “Licence to Publish”. (Many publishers have licences to publish – but these are not very well promoted or used). Idea to put effort behind a licence so that authors could retain their copyright.
• Currently, working with Knowledge Exchange Partners from Germany etc and champion authors and publishers. Idea is to promote these. Other part of the toolkit is sample wording to help authors and publishers.
• Other work packages – focussed on University Copyright Policies in Netherlands and UK. Survey (via public facing websites), to see who was using them and what they said. The survey revealed that very few policies were in place and the ones that were, were largely inaccessible. Where copyright might be owned by a university, in reality individual administered it.
• Next work package, taking forward SHERPA/ROMEO database (known as Copyright Knowledge Bank), real interest from SURF to get more involved. Looking at developing functionality and transfer agreements. Also used ZETOK data from British Library. Work in Australia in taking areas forward and possible franchise model.
• Work package on advocacy – know your rights – tools for users to use. Idea of having champions – tested by UK at De Montford University (not tried out in Netherlands). Idea to assess how this toolkit could be implemented.
• Final report (Work package 5) study undertaken by a consultancy in the Netherland to look at what types of licence agreements govern open access publishing and look at what might a model licence look like in an Open Access environment. Outcomes show that the authors wanted scholarly use to be fairly open. In terms of commercial exploitation less in favour of others having these rights. Assess licence models that were being used. Also looked at BMJ – Open Access licence that some publisher uses. 30% of recipients preferred CC licences. Report pointed to some recommendations – desire to change copyright models.
• Institutions should look at CC licence and needs to raising of awareness.
• Work is still ongoing - a high impact study. Library of Congress, SURF and OAKLaw looking at Legislation in terms of IPR and how it helps or hinders preservation. WIPO to host workshop on these issues.

 

Naomi Korn – Creative Commons in HE/FE

Naomi Korn discussed the recent report produced by RightsCom which provides a snap shot of the use of CreativeCommons and other similar commons-style licences within HEIs and FEIs. Looking at several key case studies from the tertiary education sector, including JORUM and the Open University’s Open Learn, and with reference to focus group work and discussions with international experts, she drew out both the key drivers and barriers associated with the use of Creative Commons licences. Whilst there are substantial benefits associated with their use, it was also emphasised that there may well be potential risks, and licences should be fit for purpose. Recommendations within the report included the possibility of JISC funded projects assessing the risks and benefits of using CC licence prior to project commencement; proving an analysis of “lessons learnt” from the use of Creative Commons subsequent to the completion of a project and the possibility of JISC and JISC funded services raising awareness and providing more support relating to the use of Creative Commons licences within HEIs and FEIs.

 

Ann Monotti – MonashUniversity

Overview of a number of projects funded by DEST:

 

ARROW - repository programme of journal articles and ethesis

 

DART – proof of concept project to build tools to handle all the data and information management requirements for complete end to end research life-cycle in an Open Access environment. Various work packages – security, content and rights. Looking at rights from the outset and willing of researchers to deposit their content.

What legal issues might impede development of eResearch:

• IP
• Privacy and Freedom of Information
• Risks
• Security measures (e.g. negligence)
• Defamation

More about the project:

• Aim was to help researchers to avoid problems for researchers and help users to access material.
• Real issues regarding clashes between material made available under open access opportunities and steer from research councils so that material can be commercially exploited where available.  Issues clear that might be real differences in how these issues might be dealt with at different parts of the process.
• study: x-ray crystallography. Scientists want to make results available. (Issues noted were limited to copyright and confidentiality – due to time constraints of presentation). Key issue: ownership of data, due to range of contributors can be complex and need to be dealt with from the outset. Dealing with collection of data…questions of whether it is protected by copyright – therefore reliant on contractual rights. Also issues relating to contribution of material in copyright.
• How best to deal with ownership of dynamic work.
• Impact of IP policies and funding agreements which might impact upon the project, but these may not be realised

ARCHER – taken proof of concept tools. Completely technical project, where lawyers have not involved.

Conclusions:

• Developing a trusted framework will be complex
• Researchers not willing to share data sets if in mid research
• Researchers need a common understanding of how their rights will be used
• What will happen to research data at the end of the project?
• Research needed to ensure that there is a better framework to ensure that eResearch can be commercially exploited but also available under Open Access.

 

Questions

Question: Is the JISC/SURF Copyright toolbox available through JISC Legal?

Answer: It is up already. Other material will be available shortly