MALET Issues

Ethical Issues of Online Cheating

Lawrence Lessig's videos are required reading but relevant to my topic. He discusses remix culture for the youth.

Abstract: This article reports on the results of a national survey of academic librarians and library staff (N=226) in the United States about their awareness of various copyright policies, partnerships with campus groups to address copyright issues, and training needs. A majority of the survey respondents reported that they have answered copyright-related questions in the workplace, yet only 49% (n=98) of the respondents perceived they were prepared to provide copyright information to library users. Awareness of various copyright policies among librarians and staff members varied, including a reported minimal awareness of the T.E.A.C.H. Act. In addition, survey respondents expressed the desire for more copyright-related training. In light of these findings, the present study extends the existing literature and offers recommendations to help better prepare a "copyright confident" or "copyright responsive" academic library workforce.

Objective: This paper presents the results of data gathered on copyright questions asked at an academic health sciences library. Methods: Collected data include questioner's status or discipline, the subject of the questions, the types of activities that the questioners were engaged in, the communication mode, and the length of time it took to answer the questions. Results: Overall results showed most questions were about permissions. Staff asked the most questions, followed by faculty and students. Conclusions: Copyright education is needed at universities, and further analysis of queries will determine the direction of the education.

Over the next few years, librarians at many Australian universities will participate in the creation of local Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). This article aims to prepare librarians for this task. It begins by summarising the development of the MOOC concept and then moves on to review the growing literature on MOOCs and librarians. It concludes by looking at possible developments relating to copyright.

Great article from Gale: ARL is Association of Research Libraries. In December 2009 the Libraries Copyright Task Force (LCTF) of Colorado State University Libraries (CSUL) presented its findings to the CSUL interim dean and assistant deans. As part of its charge the LCTF was asked to "identify ... current practice in responding to questions and issues regarding copyright in the Libraries" as well as "determine what the Libraries purview is in regard to copyright vs. other units in the University community ... and any external role [the] Libraries can/should play". The LCTF was also asked, as its charge, to "define content for a Libraries web site and possibly produce the content" (Negrucci, et al., 2009, [pp. 1-5]). This task force was the most recent of three internal committees that had examined copyright issues germane to the library and university community over the course of the past five years, as the transition from print to digital materials, the expansion of document delivery services, and the increase of local digitization initiatives prompted CSUL staff to address intellectual property issues with ever-increasing scrutiny.

This paper provides an overview of some of the major copyright issues for libraries in a digital environment. It explores how statutory and case law determine the path libraries must take to accomplish their mission. Copyright law is complex and ambiguous. It poses many challenges for librarians, but it is crucial that librarians have a basic understanding of the various provisions of the law in order to make informed decisions. However, the law is only one part of the equation. The interpretation of the law by the courts must also be constantly evaluated for potential impact to libraries.

From Gale: Within the academic library community, copyright is an area of critical importance and growing interest. As the landscape of information creation and delivery continues to change, interpretation of existing copyright guidelines, including Fair Use, has become less clear, and new laws have been passed. Scholarly communication issues, involving digital collections, institutional repositories, and consortial agreements are among the many evolving areas--along with authors' rights--that require copyright awareness and support. As a result, many campuses are establishing copyright offices, often within their libraries. Such services are invaluable to their constituents. In the following article, Donna Ferullo shares some of her experience in managing a university copyright office. She also offers insight to other institutions that may be considering providing such a service.-

From Gale: Russell is not alone in opposing the use of an ECL system. David Hansen, a clinical assistant professor and faculty research librarian at University of North Carolina School of Law, also served as the University of California-Berkeley School of Law's Digital Library Fellow for the Digital Library Copyright Project. His research has focused on how libraries and related information intermediaries can overcome copyright and other legal obstacles to provide better access to their collections online. He has written about copyright exceptions for libraries and archives under Section 108 of the Copyright Act, orphan works, mass digitization, copyright protection of metadata, and issues related to expanding copyright protection of traditional knowledge. Hansen is one of the facilitators for a project to create the Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use of Collections Containing Orphan Works for Libraries, Archives, and Other Memory Institutions, which was released in December 2014.

Bringing Basic Accessibility Features to Virtual Reality Context. Mauro Teófilo∗. Samsung Research Institutee. Amazon Federal University. This paper introduces Virtual Reality (VR) basic scenarios of accessibility tools like zooming, negative colors, auto reading, text-to-speech, subtitles, cursor based on context, and so on. The proposed solutions were designed based on accessibility features already in use by other platforms.