This is my third post in the course “Open Content Licensing for Educators”, provided by Open Educational Resources University via WikiEducator.
Our task was to write two multiple choice questions regarding copyright issues in education. I found the task very educating although I’m not sure how good questions I managed to create. The target audience of these questions is Finnish university teachers, and depending on the feedback I receive, I might use these as a basis of similar questions written in Finnish.
CASE
Marko is a university lecturer in Finnish university and he is preparing a course about human rights in blended mode using LMS provided by his university. He taught the same course previous term in similar way and want’s to reuse and revise the existing course material. All the material is distributed in a closed course area and is visible only to Marko himself and currently enrolled students.
Question 1.
The teaching material consists mainly material he has produced himself, written instructions to assignments, links to external sources, bibliography etc. Additionally, there is a pdf copy of scientific article which he has written together with his colleague Anna. The article is already published in an open access journal (Australian Humanities Review) which has a public website with all articles attached as pdf:s. Marko knew that Anna wasn’t very happy with the article so before the last course he asked her opinion on using it as a course material. They had an informal oral discussion and Anna told that for her it is fine to use the article, but only on that specific course. Anna expressed also, that before further use, she’d like to revise the article together with Marko. Marko hasn’t ask the permission to reuse the article from the publisher because it is open access journal and hey, it is anyway public and freely available to everyone.
Marko found that somehow the pdf file of the scientific article got corrupted. The journal ’s website was temporarily down but luckily he found the article in original format. Marko opened the article, made some revisions and saved the new version as pdf file. He is bit unsure what he can now do, so please give him guidance by choosing the right alternative from the following:
Marko is allowed to:
a) Reuse all teaching material including the scientific article, but he should download the original version from the journal’s website.
DISTRACTOR<False. The publisher reserves all rights on that article. They do allow open access to articles but don’t grant further permissions such as right to reuse. Even though Marko is a co-writer of the article.>
b) Reuse and revise all teaching material including the new version of the scientific article. Anna didn’t explicitly forbid him to revise, she just expressed an oral wish of co-revision.
DISTRACTOR<False. The publisher reserves all rights on that article. They do allow open access to articles but don’t grant further permissions such as right to reuse or revise. Even though the publisher had granted permissions to revise the article, in moral sense Marko should comply to Anna’s wish to do the revision together. It doesn’t matter whether she has expressed it orally or in written format.>
c) Reuse all teaching material, but replace the pdf file with a link to the original version of the published scientific article.
DISTRACTOR<It depends. In legal sense, the link to public website is generally fine, especially if it is clearly expressed that it leads to external material. But morally Marko should ask Anna’s permission again, because she gave it only once regarding the previous course.>
d) Marko is allowed to reuse and revise all material except any version of the scientific article.
ANSWER<Correct. Marko can freely reuse and revise the material done himself solely, except the scientific article which copyright is under journal’s control and moral ownership shared with Anna.>
Question 2.
On the course area there is also material produced by students as a groupwork assignments. The students contributed to a course wiki articles about basic concepts and issues in human rights. Marko was astonished how good articles they produced and got an idea that they should be provided as learning material to the next course. Additionally, students of the forthcoming course could also revise the work done. Marko hasn’t done any copyright agreements with the students, but hey, they are already been used and shared with the previous course with no problems at all.
However, there are some very good pictures done by students and Marko is now thinking should he remove them first, just to be sure and to avoid any copyright issues. Help him by choosing the right answer from the following:
Marko is allowed to:
a) Reuse all the material including the pictures done by students.
DISTRACTOR<False. The students own all rights to material they have done, texts as well as pictures.>
b) Reuse all the material done by students except the pictures.
DISTRACTOR<It depends. Probably false because students own all rights to material they have done, texts as well as pictures. However, if the material is encyclopaedia kind of articles there might be certain parts of text which are not expression of original creative activity. Anyway, Marko should ask the permission from the students.>
c) Reuse all the material except the pictures and let forthcoming students revise the texts because the original authors done it under Marko’s guidance as a course assignment and got most of the ideas from him.
DISTRACTOR<False. Only the students as original authors may grant futher permissions to revise. It doesn’t matter whether Marko guided or expressed the original ideas about the articles. Marko should ask the students permissions to reuse and revise>
4. Reuse all the material except the wiki articles done by students.
ANSWER.<Correct. Marko removes all the previous material and is going to ask all forthcoming students to license the material with creatice commons licenses. If somebody resists, they have an alternative assignment they can do privately.>