A new addition to the TLS team

I was delighted to join UCL in August, sharing the copyright support role with Chris Holland and reporting to Hazel Ingrey in Teaching and Learning Services (TLS). My research background is in Psychology but I’ve worked for many years in open access, copyright and, in the last couple of years, the wider world of open science, with a focus on developing communications and training in open practices.

I’m particularly excited to join UCL at a time when copyright literacy is becoming more relevant than ever in higher education. I’m not just talking about knowing when and how to copy and reuse others’ work in research, learning and teaching, although, of course, this is essential.  I’m also talking about authors’ rights playing a key role in a very wide range of initiatives, including the connected curriculum, the development of open educational resources, calls for rights retention in research publications, and practically all open science practices, seeking to make research openly accessible and reusable. From student-created films, articles and other outputs to FAIR data and from open source software to citizen science projects, an understanding of copyright and open licences gives you, the creators of knowledge, not only the confidence that you are following the rules, but also the opportunity to shape the rules. Do contact us at copyright@ucl.ac.uk if you are interested in discussing any of these topics.

Please watch this space in the coming months; we have a lot of exciting work underway, including creating additional guidance on the copyright website and some online modules that we hope will be fun as well as informative. In the meantime, have a look at our scheduled sessions below or contact us at copyright@ucl.ac.uk with any copyright questions you have or to arrange a session at your school.

Upcoming training sessions

• Copyright for postgraduate research students, 15 November 2022 at 10 am on Teams. Join us to learn all things copyright related to your thesis, publications and research data. When and how can you use others’ work in your research? How do you manage copyright to your own research? Full description and registration
• Copyright for research staff, 17 November 2022  at 10 am on Teams. In this session we refresh your memory on the basics of copyright before we address rights and licensing in your research publications, data and open access practices. Full description and registration
• Copyright for teaching staff, 22 November 2022 at 2 pm on Teams. When can you include a resource (e.g. a quote, image, recording) in a lecture? What about a recorded lecture? What about Moodle? While this session outlines what isn’t advisable to do, it also focuses on what is possible. Full description and registration
• Understanding open licences, 29 November 2022 at 3 pm on Teams. This live online session discusses open licences in research, learning and teaching, with a focus on Creative Commons Licences. Full description and registration.

To arrange a session on a different date that suits you, please contact us at copyright@ucl.ac.uk. See also the full calendar of Library Skills training for sessions on literature searching, referencing, systematic reviews, data management plans and much more.

Update from Icepops 2022

This image is available under a CC0 public domain licence.

Icepops stands for International Copyright-Literacy Event with Playful Opportunities for Practitioners and Scholars. The event was devised by Chris Morrison and Jane Secker and is run in conjunction with the CILIP Information Literacy Group.

Judging from this year’s event, held in Oxford, ‘playful’ is an understatement. Icepops is serious fun – and I’m not saying this because of the stickers, sweets, balloons, puppets, ice-breaker games and lovely food; although these things certainly made the event unique! This is a really friendly and interactive event, bringing various people from different backgrounds and levels of expertise together to share ideas, not just on their favourite ice cream flavours but also on how to shape copyright education and why this matters.

I learnt a lot in this event. Every single presentation was relevant and interesting; a most extensive discussion on topics covered will follow in future posts. For now, my main takeaways are:

• Dr Emily Hudson’s keynote on the pastiche exception in copyright law. An inspiring session, both in terms of addressing nuances in the law and in terms of pedagogy: a great model for encouraging learners to think critically about copyright.
• The keynote by Dr Andrea Wallace and Douglas McCarthy on the future of open access to digital collections in the UK: a colourful journey told almost entirely in images. The discussion revolved around the GLAM principle that works in the public domain should remain in the public domain once digitised (also see their 2020 article).
• The Copyright Jedi convention on the future of copyright education. Many valuable perspectives on critical copyright literacy; on the need for the general public to have a better understanding of rights; and a call not to be afraid of copyright but use relevant knowledge as a means to an end.

Finally, there were plenty of updates and exciting ideas communicated in the lightning talks and the demos session. I had to opportunity to present a new online resource for students – watch this space for more information soon.