E-learning vs. Copyright and IPR

From my own experience, during my secondary years at school, importance to copyright was never given. In the sense that we have never been told to credit people’s work: if used in our projects, homework and other work. This led me to finding it difficult to credit others’ work later in my life especially when I started this course at the University. Only our Sociology teacher (at Junior college) gave importance to this copyright issue.

This made me aware how important it is for students to know and appreciate others work. In fact, during my teaching practice, whenever I asked the students to find some information, I made it clear that they should reference the book/ site used. I must say that not all of did this since they are not used in doing so (it is like a ripple effect. The problem still lies in the educators).

Students just copy and paste the information they think is right. Sometimes they do not even read the text they choose. I think, the first thing we should do is teach the students how and most of all why is this important. A real example can be shown by using the students’ own work and introduce the importance of copyright from there.

If an e-Learning system was to be introduced in today’s schools, I think that a lot of problems would arise in respect to this issue. First of all, students will view this as an open source sharing information without understanding the idea behind it. Moreover, what will be available depends on what the teachers are willing to share, what can be digitized and also what can be shared without the violation of copyright (however, let’s take into consideration the cc)

I found the following quote which I think it describes today’s situations about e-learning:

‘Almost 99.99% of the courses have only course outlines and syllabus. It is like browsing through a CD category, knowing what songs are available yet unable to hear them.’

This can be a result due to teachers not willing to share their content with other teachers. For example during the SDP meeting held at the school I was at (in my teaching practice), the principal commented on the idea of sharing. He also wanted the teachers to visit other schools (of the same college) and mingle with other teachers by sharing ideas.

The following objective policies were found from The University of the Arts London Intellectual Property Rights (IPR): Policy and Guidelines. The objectives of these guidelines state the following:
• A culture of students and teachers working together is supported.
• New skills and knowledge would be shared.

I think that rather than guidelines (although they should be taken into consideration), first, it is more important for educators to become aware of the benefits of when information is shared and then abide by the guidelines and policies .

References:
1. Google book: Globalized E-Learning Cultural Challenges. (2007). By Andrea Edmundson
2. http://intranet.arts.ac.uk/intellectual-property/