Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal October 2007 Volume 5(5)

E-learning

Positive intervention

Digital content created in educational institutions should be shared more and stored better, and librarians should lead on this important issue, say Jackie Proven and John Casey.

Our educational institutions are faced with growing information management challenges in the technical and legal domains as e-learning matures and collections of digital content increase. After a two-year study into the issues concerned with managing Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in digital learning material, a JISC-funded project has issued guidelines which offer realistic and practical solutions, based on information management principles.

TrustDR was funded under the JISC Digital Repositories Programme, and examined current practice in the creation and use of e-learning content produced in institutions. The project noted low levels of sharing beyond formal agreements, even within institutional boundaries, and very little use of central services for storing and managing this internally-created teaching and learning material. The reasons for this are varied, but case studies showed a tendency to project traditional, individualist ways of teaching into the digital environment, creating ‘silos’ of material. Thus, content is often managed in relative isolation, without clear knowledge of IPR issues. This fails both to realise the potential for reuse, and potentially leaves institutions open to the consequences of copyright infringement.

This research formed the basis of TrustDR’s main output – Managing Intellectual Property Rights in Digital Learning Materials: a Development Pack for Institutional Repositories,2 which argues the case for a positive intervention by librarians in a process of systematic institutional change.

The approach taken by the TrustDR project team is to ‘turn the IPR problem around’ and view solving it as an enabler for institutional change. TrustDR considered the management of digital content holistically, as part of the delivery of flexible and sustainable e-learning.

Starting with an examination of institutions’ core educational business, the project explored the need for systematic process change, and went on to investigate and outline policy development that recognises the relative values of content and teaching. If properly devised, communicated and monitored such policies can then create an environment that can harness the advantages of shareable resources.

TrustDR concluded: ‘To manage IPR in e-learning we require effective information and records management procedures – most of what is needed can be achieved by simple policy formulation and administration’. Policy is important because it acts as an expression of relationships, cultures and values in a community – it also needs to reflect real underlying needs. This point is also emphasised by HEFCE guidance for senior managers: IPR in e-learning programmes.

Fundamental issues concerning ownership and control need to be resolved, and senior management need to engage with the issues in order to improve awareness levels and good practice among institutional staff. The arrival of digital repositories also represents a significant change, described by Lynch not as a piece of technology but as a ‘set of services’ requiring an ‘organisational commitment’. Repositories represent a significant information management challenge, and need to be operated under an appropriate IPR ‘regime’.

Once we recognise the fact that institutions have become de facto digital publishers, enjoying both the legal rights and responsibilities that brings, information professionals are in a good position to support this scenario. TrustDR proposes that the library is the right home for a repository to manage reusable e-learning content as it:
>> has a facilitative and service oriented ethos
>> has experience in making best use of resources
>> has, or can develop, skills in collection management, metadata etc.
>> already liaises with academics as both users and creators of content
>> has copyright and licence expertise
>> can promote shared resources from a central point
understands the need for advocacy.

The TrustDR Development Pack gives some specific actions that can be taken on by the academic library as part of a concerted institutional policy development that can result in positive outcomes, including:
>> Reducing risk – organising audits of material, choosing appropriate licences to apply to content
>> Advocacy – promoting a centrally managed service (the greatest risk for a repository service could be lack of use)
>> Quality control – metadata creation, collection management
>> Sustainability – designing effective records management processes
>> IPR awareness – guidance and training on copyright.

Viewed in this way, the library is therefore not just the best home of a digital repository, but the pivotal support mechanism on which successful and sustainable e-learning depends. IS

Jackie Proven is Support Materials Officer, SQA, Glasgow (during the TrustDR project she was Digital Rights Research & Development Assistant, UHI). John Casey is Learning Materials Manager, UHI.

Information Scotland Vol. 5(5) October 2007

Information Scotland is delivered online by the SAPIENS electronic publishing service based at the Centre for Digital Library Research. SLAINTE (Scottish libraries across the Internet) offers further information about librarianship and information management in Scotland.