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In pretty much every conference that I have attended, there have been some presentations or workshops on the legal and policy environment in which instructional designers and IT folks work. The affordances and constraints of a litigious environment mean that we have to proceed defensively.
Word is that “anonymity” (which has never truly existed online, no?) also is no defense against libel. People are realizing that there are limits to free speech, just as there are with every legal right ...
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This issue surfaces in the popular media every so often, when a celebrity’s medical records, police file, mug shot, or some other official information gets compromised and released to the press. The idea of “data voyeurism” is that of people who don’t have a “need-to-know” accessing information that they shouldn’t.
I ran across this term again in an article, in the context of Information Technology (IT). It seems to me that instructional designers also handle plenty of ...
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David Shieh’s “These Lectures are Gone in 60 Seconds: Minute-long talks find success at a community college” got forwarded to us instructional designers by our supervisor recently. (http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i26/26a00102.htm) This issue had come up because of a request by some departments for a presentation that would cover some topics that are critical for e-learning: new technologies, e-learning quality, accessibility, intellectual property, and some design principles. They wanted this all in a short time ...
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by Eruditio Loginquitas
18 February 2009
A recent book I’ve been reading talks about a nation’s power in part as ideational. Besides its economy and its military clout, a nation has “soft power,” the ability to influence other nations and peoples through the power of its ideas. This is about using charisma and the strength of ideas. Some of the more engaging ideas of late have involved Web 2.0 or the collaboration around shared ideas.
In that light, I’ve been thinking about ...
Continue reading The Ideational Power of Open Source and Creative Commons Releases
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From the outside (as a non-lawyer), disclaimers read like legalized clauses that say, “Here are very limited uses of this site, and don’t hold me legally responsible for what others do or say.” A recent project involved plenty of research and pursuit of the legal concepts and practices behind defining a “Terms of Service” for a site that involves both public and private contents for college students, in a site designed to build a protective wall and support around ...
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IGI Global has a book coming out titled "Ethical Practices and Implications in Distance Learning" this July 2008. This is edited by Drs. Ugur Demiray of Anadolu University and Ramesh C. Sharma of Indira Gandhi National Open University.
Main Book Site http://www.igi-pub.com/reference/details.asp?ID=7985
Table of Contents http://www.igi-pub.com/reference/details.asp?ID=7985&v=tableOfContents
This book takes more of an international and global perspective.
Continue reading Ethical Practices and Implications in Distance Learning
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There’s something charming about being able to watch a small college come online in creating an online program. What’s even more intriguing is watching from a distance and through the framework of an online course to train the faculty, staff and administrators—using the LMS they’ve selected for their program.
Having never set foot on the campus of this college and only driven by the small town where it’s based once on my way elsewhere, I ...
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Professor John Scigliano’s initiation into online space was not very salutary the way he tells it. He had logged on to Second Life when he was approached by a “furry” in lizard form, who promptly assaulted his avatar. This professor at the Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences of Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was somewhat traumatized, the way he tells it.
In “Payoffs, Spin-offs, and Ripoffs in Virtual Worlds: What Gain? What Pain?” at the ...
Continue reading IRBs, Video Releases and 3D Virtual Avatars
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The KU Libraries hosted a "Copyright in Academia: Challenges and Opportunities" conference back on March 7. They have published the resources of the presenters, and those may be found at the following site.
http://www.lib.ku.edu/CopyrightSymposium/CopyrightSymposiumhandouts.shtml
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Rich media refers to Web artifacts and sites that provide audio, video and interactivity. This includes downloadable or streaming videos that may be played on different media players like Adobe's Flash Player, Apple's QuickTime, Real Networks' RealPlayer, and Microsoft's Windows Media Player.
Rich multimedia can add more full-sensory learning such as sound and dynamic motion video to an online or hybrid learning experience. The digital interactive media may offer a more active learner experience than passive viewing ...
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Copyright in Academia: Challenges and Opportunities
The University of Kansas (KU) is hosting a day-long symposium on copyright issues in academia, with two powerhouse speakers: Tracy Mitrano and Wesley D. Blakeslee. This is a free conference for locals.
http://www.lib.ku.edu/copyrightsymposium/
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So what does it take to be able to show a full-length video (that is copyrighted) in a password protected online class? In other words, what does it take to host the media on university servers and to have the materials streamed (semi-protectively) for educational purposes?
Faculty will use rich media for F2F uses. They'll verify display rights with the library and then use the video materials, for purely educational non-commercial purposes. Trying to translate this freedom to an ...
Continue reading The New Territories of Digital Rights Management
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"Are you involved in, or do you plan to be involved in any activity where you have agreed, or plan to agree, to any restriction regarding the publication; disclosure; shipment; distribution or release of a particular item or goods, technology, or information? This includes written, electronic, digital, or verbal information."
This above question was part of an automated training that I took part in recently on export controls. The answer in my mind was, "Well, yes, maybe."
Between the Y ...
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Maybe I became somewhat more daring after having taken a course through a full accessibility build. It seemed the right time to also create a course that fully observed every copyright law that we were aware of. It takes some walking the straight line to be able to do it somewhat more easily the next time.
As I come from the academic side of the house (vs. the commercial), the constraints I've worked with have been low funding and ...
Continue reading Scrubbing a Course for Intellectual Property
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by Eruditio Loginquitas
14 October 2007
Chasing rights releases on digital media for faculty has made me a little more nostalgic for dealing with local media markets instead of the national ones.
Years ago, I'd take my mass media students to the local televison station, and we'd tour the premises. We'd see how live weather was captured with the meteorologist speaking to the camera in front of a green screen. We'd see how ...
Continue reading Chasing Rights Releases with National Television Broadcasting Companies
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Accessibility is one of those critical issues that affect pretty much all ID work. Various authoring software programs have made our jobs a lot easier in terms of templating with the right color contrasts, the ability to add alt texts, the various ways digital files may be output, and so on. My own commitment to accessibility has been put to the test with a 9-module course build that involves plenty of video: lectures, labs ...
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Copyright seems to be one of those perennial issues, especially as multimedia builds get more complex and involve more diverse sources of materials.
What do you do if you're brought onto a project, and your predecessor downright took a load of writing from another site / from professional colleagues / from published sources? What do you do if a client would like to use copyrighted materials in a course curriculum (and ultimately a book) that was developed in-house, and she ...
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Too often, various educators take a very defensive stance when it comes to using copyrighted works. They'd rather borrow the concept and a snippet or two of a copyrighted work and not risk any infringement. Yet, learning about fair use may help instructors better use the plentiful informational resources out there and keep them safe from intellectual property violations. A lack of understanding of one's rights will mean that fair use is not put to good use.
Faculty ...
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So I just went through a learner-directed "automated" study of six online modules related to human subjects review. There weren't pre- or post- tests per se, but this blog entry may serve as a kind of post-test. (Let's just say I pass.) While the heading for this blog is playful, the contents of IRB trainings are not, often opening with painful reviews of historical abuses of people in various types of biomedical and other "research." The nuances of ...
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Disclaiming responsibility offers thin legal cover if a site engages in various misdeeds. That said, disclaiming is also de rigueur for most sites. Years ago when I was teaching a New Media writing course, one of our assignments was to review existing disclaimers on the WWW. We identified the various uses of disclaimers for content sites. These often addressed The type of information covered in the website The original intention of the website builders and owner for the proper use ...
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Faculty will ask, Well, if I want to use this video in a class, can't I upload it in my password protected online classroom? It'll be like me showing a video that I own in my face-to-face classroom. Another will ask, Can't I just upload an article to my online class? There are resources that I want to share with my students. In a recent grain science book, we put in the USDA's revised food pyramid ...
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"May I borrow a cup of sugar?" That quote is used as a cliche of friendliness between neighbors. It's a quote that harkens back to the days when going to the store might be an imposition and not something as simple as bicycling over to the corner store or jumping into the car.
An ID sometimes ends up asking that question, "May I borrow...?" and "May I have...?" from pure strangers who work in a particular field. The request ...
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For almost half a year now, I've been in hot pursuit of a copyright release. This release is for certain intellectual property and templates used for designing digital learning objects. The company being pursued (although they seemed to hardly notice) is a large multinational one specializing in networking. The pursuit involved lots of phone calls, some toll free and some simply long distance. It involved emails and plenty of documentation. It involved working with three PIs, with two of ...
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The Web works its magic now and again. And today it was so for me. I went browsing for information on reusable learning objects after having read my fill of SCORM and Cisco RLO information parts of last week and this week.
I ran across a nonprofit organization called the Creative Commons (started in 2001 by lawyer and author Lawrence "Code" Lessig). This organization strives to build the shared commons body of knowledge through education and releases of copyrighted works ...