Speaker
Ms
Kerryn McKay
(UNISA / TUT)
Description
This paper seeks to use, as a background context, the findings of a small-scale survey aimed at teachers and librarians, which explored their knowledge of copyright. Based on the findings of the survey, it appears as if there is some misinformation and a great deal of confusion about copyright amongst the target group. In face, in itself, is understandable given that copyright Act, which was originally drafted in 1978, is anbiguous around certain clauses as well as not responding adequately to the digital environment. Until there is reform of the Copyright Act, or at least an update to certain clauses, teachers and librarians must be able to navigate and operate within the act to the benefit of their users and students. In this environment open-licensed resources can be used as 'safe' tools for librarians and educators.
The small-scale survey entitled "Copyright for Teachers and Librarians: making sense of the South African copyright environment" was undertaken as part of the dissemination strategy for a project entitled: African Copyright and Access to Knowledge (ACA2K) which was an IDRC-funded initiative that looked at vaious African copyright regimes and how they affect access to educational materials. The dissemination strategy for the findings which can be easily accessed (ie, understood and used) by teachers and librarians. As such the survey was conducted to explore the understanding of teachers and librarians on copyright and how this effects (or doesn't) their daily lives. The survey was followed up by a workshop which sought to clarify some of the points found through the survey and concretise the next steps for the user-friendly resource. A total of 83 people undertook the survey. The findings were interesting in that they appear to reflect a group of respondents who understand less about copyright than they acknowledge.
The findings- which were presented to the workshop by myself, Kerryn McKay - were contrasted and compared to the current Copyright Act, by Carolone Ncube (a legal academic from UCT). She highlighted the ambiguities in the Act and thus we were able to demonstrate that information that is accepted as 'standard practice', for example around copyright exceptions for educational purposes, is most often legally 'incorrect'.
Unfortunately there is not much that can be currently done with regard to the ambiguities in the Act, but it is important for librarians and teachers to understand what the law currently says and where the grey area exist. However, in order to operate at least to some degree with confidence and knowledge that they are not infringed creators rights according to the Act, open-licensed resources and OERs (open educational resources)are tools that librarians should be using - and sharing with users - when possible. The survey also brought to light that librarians may not fully understand, or know how to access, such resources.
This presentation would ideally be an interactive session, which would begin with a description of the original project, thus providing a background context for the survey. The results of the survey would be communicated. Following this a description of open resources and examples of these resources would be shown to participants. If possible, it would be ideal to have a similar interactive session for this paper as per the Bloemfontein pre-conference workshop hosted by FAIFE in 2009, during which time participants were able to explore how to search for open-licencesed resources in a computer lab.
Primary author
Ms
Kerryn McKay
(UNISA / TUT)
