Transcript When Worlds Collide: Copyright and Scholarship in the

Higher Education
Cyberinfrastructure
and the Knowledge Economy
James L. Hilton
Associate Provost for Academic IT
Interim University Librarian
University of Michigan
Guiding Beliefs
Higher education is in the process of being redefined.
In terms of scale, the redefinition is likely to compare with
the redefinition that occurred around the rise of research
universities following WWII.
How we will fare on the other side of this transformation is
unclear.
Two framings of this future
Dawn
© Photohome.com
Outline
Formidable Forces
• Unbundling
• The emergence of the “pure property” view of ideas
Forces of Hope
• Open Source Movement
• Digital Repositories and Open Access
• Creative Commons
• Cost curves and managing to abundance
• Mass Digitization
Formidable Force I:
Unbundling
Publishing
Banking
“Mass” media
Unbundling Higher Ed
Knowledge vs. Information
Projecting Value in the Audit
Society
Scholarship Unbundled
Challenges
•Digital Divides
•Which students are we losing?
•Models of authorship
•Archiving interactive scholarship
•Oh yeah, and then there’s the question of literacy
Formidable Force II:
The Emergence of the Pure Property
View of Ideas
Copyright Tour Guide
If I asked, “What’s the primary purpose of copyright,”
what would you answer?
“To protect the author’s intellectual property (ideas).”
SURPRISE!!!
The primary purpose of copyright is to promote learning.
Giving authors control over their works is simply a
means to that end.
How do we know that the primary goal
of copyright is to promote learning?
First, it says so.
The Congress shall have Power…To promote the Progress
of Science and the useful Arts, by securing for limited
times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive right to their
respective Writings and Discoveries…”
United States Constitution, Article I
Second, it’s a monopoly.
Third, the original requirements for gaining copyright
protection (i.e., registration, publication, & limited scope and
endurance) were more consistent with “learning” and
promoting access than with promoting property.
The Evolution of Copyright
“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself
without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine
receives light without darkening me.”
The Reduced Shakespearetm guide to 200 years of
copyright
OR
How we got from “promoting access” to “protecting
property”
A few copyright surprises
• What do you have to do to gain copyright protection?
Absolutely nothing
• What works are protected by copyright?
Virtually everything
• If I contribute an idea, does copyright protect me?
Nope, copyright protects expressions not ideas.
• Are out of print books in the public domain?
Nope, protection is practically “forever”
• Are there simple guidelines that tell me what is and
isn’t a “fair use?”
Nope, only a judge can answer the question.
• You pay a royalty every time you buy a blank video or
audio tape.
The Evolution of Patents:
“Genius” preferred but not necessary
• MODB Patents
– Amazon.com patent #5960411 (1999) -- “Oneclick” buying
– Priceline.com patent # 6041308 (2000) -- “Buyer
pricing”
• Defensive Patenting (e.g., IBM)
• Patent Office Funding Model
At a macro level, what is happening is that copyright and
patent law are moving aggressively in the direction of
protecting owners and away from promoting access and
learning.
More importantly, our cultural understanding of the
nature of ideas is shifting--even within the academy.
Who “Owns” Class Notes?
Who “Owns” the right to Publish
Who “owns” class materials?
And just when you thought it was safe…
• Are Saturday game films publicity or intellectual
property?
• What do we think about students asking their
professors sign non-disclosure forms?
• What about professors who hesitate to work with
students because they fear that the collaboration will
mean that they will lose control over their intellectual
property?
The Punch Line
For better or worse, the future of ideas is being
defined by the entertainment industry via the battle
between technology that is predisposed to liberate
information and business models that seek to lock
information down.
Within the academy, how do we preserve sharing and
collaboration in a world that views ideas as property?
Force of Hope I:
Open (a.k.a., Community) Source
Software Movement
Chandler/Westwood
The Sakai Project
The University of Michigan, MIT, Stanford, Indiana
University, and now over 60 other institutions have joined
in an international effort to develop the next generation of
software infrastructure and tools to support research and
teaching.
– Complete Course Management System
– Research Support Collaboration System
– Enterprise Services-based Portal
– Tool Portability Profile Tool (i.e., clear standard for
writing future tools that can extend this core set of
applications)
– Community (i.e., development, implementation and
support)
Broad Goal – interchangeable tools, components built at
different places all work together and implemented at
different institutions
Why UM went down the Sakai path
• Legacy system with no positive trajectory forward
• Saw market consolidation in CMS
• Saw the potential of tapping core competence and starting a
virtuous cycle of development/teaching/research
• Strategic desire to blur the distinction between the
laboratory/classroom between knowledge creation/digestion
• NRC report and the need for collaboration
• A moment in time opportunity (Mellon and synchronization)
• Leverage links between open source, open access and culture of
the academy/wider world
What is SAKAI?
• Sakai ≠ Course Management System
• Sakai = Collaboration & Learning Environment
Supporting the Class
Supporting the Lab
Bringing the lab to the
classroom
SAKAI Roadmap
Jan 04
July 04
May 05
Activity:
Maintenance &
Transition from a
project to
a community
Michigan
•CHEF Framework
•CourseTools
•WorkTools
Indiana
•Navigo Assessment
•Eden Workflow
•Oncourse
MIT
•Stellar
Stanford
•CourseWork
•Assessment
OKI
•OSIDs
uPortal
Dec 05
SAKAI 1.0 Release
•Tool Portability Profile
•Framework
•Services-based Portal
•Refined OSIDs
& implementations
SAKAI Tools
•Complete CMS
•Assessment
SAKAI 2.0 Release
•Tool Portability Profile
•Framework
•Services-based Portal
SAKAI Tools
•Complete CMS
•Assessment
•Workflow
•Research Tools
•Authoring Tools
Sakai Community Support
• Developer and Adopter Support
– Sakai Educational Partner’s Program (SEPP)
• Commercial Support
– Open-open licensing – open source, open for
commercialization
– For fee services from some vendors will include…
• Installation/integration, On-going support,
Training
Sakai Educational Partner’s Program (SEPP)
Membership Fee: US$10K per year, 3 years
• Access to SEPP staff
– Community development manager
– SEPP developers, documentation writers
• Knowledgebase
• Developer training for the TPP
• Exchange for partner-developed tools
• Strategy and implementation workshops
• Seat at the Table as Sakai/SEPP develop
Force of Hope II:
Digital Repository Technology/Polices
and New Forms of Publishing
Force of Hope III:
Emergence of the Creative Commons
“some rights reserved” Approach to
Copyright
Force of Hope IV:
Cost Curves and Managing to
Abundance
Force of Hope V:
Mass Digitization
Mass Digitization Beliefs
– Announcement changes the world (from “whether”
to “when” from “how” to “to what ends”)
– Highlights age of ubiquitous access and throws in
sharp relief “information” vs. “knowledge”
– If it’s not online, it won’t be read--but most
monograph-length material won’t be read online
Timeline
• Google has been at UM for over a year working on the
project.
• They have already begun large-scale capture @UM
• UM has started to receive content
• Samples are in Google Print
• Large amounts in … Q2? Q3?
• Project “complete” in approx. 5 years (7.5 Million
volumes)
Transformative Implications
• Broad, efficient, democratizing of access to public
domain works
• Project as driver for …
– Rationalizing IP issues
– Creation of cooperative “universal” library
– Exacerbating paradox of “library as place”
– Facilitating “specialization” (ceding “generalist”
role to Google)
– Freeing up resources for related issues (e.g.,
institutional repositories, scholarly communication)
Final Thoughts
The “transformed” university will be all about
•
•
•
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Collaboration
Learning by doing
Engagement with the world
Access to knowledge
Research
a.k.a., CLEAR
Questions/Discussion