This session will focus on a padlet https://padlet.com/ukcopyrightlit/OER21. The session will be facilitated by members of the new ALT Special Interest Group on Copyright and Online Learning who will encourage participation from conference delegates both synchronously and asynchronously. We will start by defining our terms and then ask a series of questions, each of which will have some associated resources.

This is an open space session for discussions on a subject that has been debated in the open education community for many years, but which has become highlighted during the pandemic: namely the relationship between open practices and copyright. The need for academics to have a greater understanding of copyright has been highlighted in previous studies but often focuses on issues related to open access publishing and scholarly communication (Hoorn, E and van der Graaf, M. 2005). We will specifically explore the role that copyright literacy plays in this debate. Copyright Literacy means “acquiring and demonstrating the appropriate knowledge, skills and behaviours to enable the ethical creation and use of copyright material” (Secker and Morrison, 2016, p.211).

These questions will include:
What is the relationship between copyright literacy and open practice and how has the shift to online learning in 2020 changed our understanding of these terms?
Is copyright law a barrier or enabler of open practice?
Is copyright literacy a barrier or enabler of open practice?
Does discussion of open practice focus enough, or too much on copyright and licensing practices as opposed to other aspects of openness?
How inclusive is copyright as a discipline and what can be done to make it more ‘open’?