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!

In a previous post I mentioned UCL’s CLA licence for digitising course readings. UCL holds several other licences useful for teaching: take advantage of them to deliver imaginative teaching to your students. They can also simplify complex copyright issues.

The ERA (Educational Recording Agency) licence is for recording broadcast TV and radio for educational purposes. There is a helpful ERA licence booklet; however it is even easier to avoid the paperwork and head straight to Box of Broadcasts (BoB).

BoB makes the best use of our ERA licence, with no administrative fuss: no record-keeping, recording from the TV or labelling of DVDs. It is similar to on-demand streaming services like the BBC iPlayer or 4oD, but across 65 channels, you can request programmes, and it is for educational purposes only.  You can provide students with a link to a full programme, a clip you can create yourself, or to whole playlists you have created. We encourage adding the links into your online reading list for the best experience for students.

If you already use BoB in your teaching you will have had an email notifying you of the summer upgrade, which will be complete by September. Watch a short promotional video to see the improvements outlined in 60 seconds. These include:

• Improved video quality
• A platform which works across all devices
• Better searching capabilities
• Better programme coverage and automatic requesting with a permanent archive of all programme content from 9 channels (BBC1 London/BBC2 London/BBC4/ITV London/Channel 4/More 4/ Channel 5/BBC Radio 4/BBC Radio 4 Extra)
• Better thumbnail previews on search results
• Email alerts when a requested programme is ready to view
• More detailed citation data

Please note that during the upgrade the full archive may not be available, however everything will back as usual by September.

BoB is powered by Learning on Screen, the British Universities and Colleges Film and Video Council (formerly BUFVC) which has interesting resources relating to teaching with moving image. UCL also holds a membership to this body.

Follow BoB on Twitter: @OnDemandBoB

Teaching & Learning Services: for ReadingLists@UCL, digitised course readings and copyright support.