Partnering on Copyright

Background

The JISC-funded RoMEO Project and the SURF Copyright Management in Higher Education ( Zwolle) conferences have highlighted the lack of awareness of copyright ownership issues within Higher Education. The RoMEO Project found that 41% of authors “freely” assigned their copyright to publishers, even though the majority of those copyright assignment forms prohibited authors from performing activities with their own, or others’ works, that they expected to be able to do. (For example, 58% of authors expected to give others’ works away – something copyright law and most publisher copyright agreements disallow). The Zwolle Principles, emanating from the first conference in 2001, encouraged “the optimal management of copyright in scholarly works to secure clear allocation of rights that balance the interests of all stakeholders”. In order to achieve a clear allocation of rights that balance the interests of all parties, it is essential that all parties are aware of exactly what rights they own.

The JISC-SURF 'Partnering on Copyright' programme, consisting of five distinct projects, is to result in various toolkits, databases, and example clauses that will assist stakeholders in the management of their rights. The 'Know your rights' project provides a central point of dissemination for those outputs, ensuring that once stakeholders are aware of their rights, they will have easy access to the tools they need to manage them. This campaign is taking place in the Netherlands and the UK and involves close co-operation between the UK and Dutch partners.

Aims & Objectives

The aim of the 'Know your rights' campaign is to raise awareness of copyright ownership and management issues in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). To this end, the following objectives are to be achieved:

• The generation of appropriate content for a 'Know Your Rights' campaign, using as its basis the project communication plan.
• The delivery of the 'Know Your Rights' campaign via:
• The concept of ‘Champions’ within the HEIs.
• A digital communication toolkit, consisting of:

• a short and simple manual on how to create a communication plan, including how to reach target groups, the use and production of communication means, and how to identify ‘champions’.
• ‘ingredients’ to combine and make means of communication (flyers, presentations, posters, articles, websites) that are fit for the target groups:

• Texts that inform about policies, OA, the ©Toolkit etc.;
• Visual material such as pictures, pictograms, streamers, cartoons, e-cards;

• means of communication that are already produced.
• examples and good practices of advocacy initiatives.

• Two pilots: one in the UK and one in the Netherlands. In these pilots the concept of the ‘champions’ and the use of the communication toolkit are tested, described and analyzed.The main target groups of this work package are the UK and NL academic staff and the senior managers in the HEI’s, and also librarians/institutional repository (IR) administrators who are most likely to use the communication toolkit. Speaking in terms of communication, this project aims first of all at increasing knowledge and, secondly, at raising awareness. Awareness can be raised by giving information (knowledge). Also, the filling of the IRs will make the target groups more interested in copyright issues.

It must be emphasised that this programme focuses on the open access of research output and not of teaching materials and learning objects. Although many of the issues raised are also very relevant to teaching materials there are notable differences between these and research articles with regards to OA, including differing benefits, problems and solutions.  

Project Outcomes

It is hoped that the ultimate project outcome will be a change in the rights culture in UK and NL HEIs and the international publishing community, so as to facilitate increased access to the scholarly journal literature. In the short-term, this may manifest itself as an increased awareness of the rights issues and options available to stakeholders.

Project Partners

Loughborough University;
SURF DiRECt; and
JISC.

Project Management

Project Coordination: Prof. Charles Oppenheim