‘Roll of film’ by Dale Mastin-Purcell is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0

We often have questions around using audiovisual works in teaching or research and, whilst we are always very happy to help you with specific questions, if you regularly work with audiovisual material it can be helpful to find out more so you can re-use or create with more confidence in future.

Learning on Screen (formerly the BUFVC) specialise in moving image in education.  Their online training course ‘Copyright and creative re-use in Education’ has new dates added for March and April 2022.  As they describe it:

‘This course will explore the main copyright issues related to lawfully accessing, using and producing audiovisual works in educational settings. Primarily aimed at teachers, students, academics, researchers, librarians, and other people dealing with audiovisual works in education, this course will help attendees understand the conditions under which audiovisual works can be used lawfully for educational purposes; and how mash ups and other derivative works can be created and exploited within and beyond educational settings. In particular, the course will address the challenges posed by copyright law in relation to moving to online teaching.’

UCL is a member of Learning on Screen so chose the discounted option if you choose to book!  This course can also be booked for an institution or department.

If you have a different copyright training topic in mind that would help your department or group of students, do get in touch with UCL Copyright and we will tailor training to suit you!

One of my favourite events is the Learning on Screen AGM day.  For the past few years I have benefitted from the fantastic speakers they draw together, speaking on the themes of audiovisual material and copyright.

Last year’s session A case study on Audiovisual Essay (19 minutes) provoked me to think on the importance of timing in *when* to deliver copyright training.  Dr. Catherine Grant, the engaged, informed academic had such an excellent working knowledge of copyright, and how to use UK copyright exceptions in a research or education setting, that she was using third party material with confidence and passing this confidence and excellent academic practice on to her students.  Get it right from the start and you will be empowered to use more third party material – even with ‘difficult’ resources like moving image.

This year the theme was around Creativity, copyright and citation.  Three things really caught my attention and had me scribbling down ideas for training or support at UCL.

1. Dr. Shane O’Sullivan spoke about his students using archive footage to create their own films. Having worked in industry he automatically passed on his high standards of copyright understanding to his students, balancing a healthy respect for works with practicalities of re-using them. He encouraged students to balance third party material with their own original material (for pedagogic reasons); ‘work with broadcasters, not around them’; and said rights clearance had to be ‘achieveable’ – by using works by companies such as the BFI and Crown Copyright.  There are some copyright exceptions that could also be used in in this educational essay work, or review / critique setting.
2. The e-CHARM project, commissioned by Learning on Screen and carried out by the engaging UK Copyright Literacy team and colleague, had its results presented today. The report will be available in 2018 and identified many areas where support and information is needed. For fans, the report from their last project, Lecture recording in HE: risky business or evolving open practice is available on Open Access.
3. The first note I wrote to myself was ‘AV citation standards. Any guides’?  And by the last session I had one in my hands: the updated Audiovisual Citation guidelines by Learning on Screen, including new media such as Podcasts and vlogs.  All my questions answered at once!

Learning on Screen is the new name of the BUFVC, of which UCL is a member.  It provides services such as TRILT, Box of Broadcasts, off-air recordings (and more) which are wonderful research and teaching resources.  Our use of these are supported by UCL’s ERA licence. Get in touch if you have questions about using any of these!

Celuloid secrets by Kit

Calling film and media students, and teaching staff!  Copyright issues around re-using audiovisual material are complex, particularly in student assessment such as film essays: this free, October workshop could help you in your studies or teaching.

Run by the BFI, Learning on Screen and Kingston School of Art, this half-day workshop will explore the creative use of archive material, for Higher Education studies.

Participants will raise their awareness of copyright considerations in re-using archival moving-image works, and consider creative and pedagogic approaches to using this kind of material.

The workshop also marks the launch of an initiative to open up the BFI archive to student film makers, and a recent pilot scheme using BFI archive material will be presented.

Attendance is free but registration required. 18 October 2017, 11.00 – 14.00 at the BFI Southbank. Full details  are on the Learning on Screen website.

Whilst Chris is unpacking the new amendments to the CDPA to explain how it will affect UCL teaching and learning, we have also been looking at the other side of the coin: resources which can be used in teaching.  Below are two resources that can be linked to for educational purposes, without infringing copyright. Neither are copyright-free or in the public domain, however they allow specific usage that can be fantastically useful in teaching.

BoB National: Box of Broadcasts

Teaching staff were very enthusiastic about this during a successful trial, and UCL has now taken a subscription.  BoB gives access to 60+ TV and radio channels.  You can request programmes you have missed, ‘record’ upcoming programmes and create clips.  These are saved to BoB indefinitely, for all BoB users to view.

To log in select ‘UCL’ from the institutions list, and use your usual UCL ID and password.  There are video tutorials or you can just start browsing.

• You can: view, share, and create clips.
• You cannot: view from outside the UK. Download or store on your computer.

British Pathe Archive

This newly available resource is open access; that is, it is available online to view for free.  British Pathe has had its entire collection digitised under a National Lottery grant and this is now available via their YouTube channel.

This archive makes available film clips from significant global historical events, including first and second World Wars, the Hiroshima bombing, Suffragette action and footage of the Titanic.  There is footage of the first mobile phone (1922) and features on travel, fashion and celebrities.

• You can: view and share the film clips (e.g. using the Twitter / Facebook etc. ‘share’ buttons).
• You cannot: play in the classroom, or download and store.  Pathe advertisements are included.

Open access resources are especially useful for teaching on open online courses (such as UCL eXtend, or CPD courses), where students are not registered at UCL and therefore unable to access UCL-subscribed resources.  Do make sure the links are stable for your students, and perhaps consider using ReadingLists@UCL to keep links to your teaching resources in one place.