Open education has tremendous potential to build tailored resources that reflect the diverse experiences of students and empower a set of transformative open practices. Like any tool, however, open education can only achieve these ends when resources are intentionally developed by educators with the necessary skills and support. In order for open education to meet its potential, it is clear that educators must have access to the most current and relevant materials even when those materials are protected by copyright. Reliance on copyright exceptions such as fair use and fair dealing is critical for creating the most effective and inclusive materials, a fact well-understood and frequently employed by commercial textbook publishers.
In order to meet these needs in a way that is truly transformative we have developed a Code of Best Practices for Fair Use and Fair Dealing in Open Education. Building on more than 50 interviews and focus groups with creators, publishers, and legal experts in the open education community, we identified areas of need, opportunities for development, and community-recognized values. We have brought these together into a unified resource that explains how fair use and fair dealing can empower educators to live up to our aspirations and build open resources based on pedagogy and inclusivity, unencumbered by legal uncertainty and anxiety.
This session introduces the Code and invites participants to explore the opportunities and challenges it creates. We will lead an interactive discussion about the Code and walk through strategies for applying it to a variety of situations in creating and using OER. We will also describe the way that the Code demonstrates alignment between different systems of law to create a broad set of practices permitted across North America and beyond.
Next, we will invite participants to share their own reflections on the amazing things they can do when empowered by fair use and fair dealing in OER and to discuss how the Code may or may not fit in their own practices. By grounding this discussion in the practices and concerns of participants we hope to make the Code more accessible as a resource and to make it more reflective of the needs of actual practitioners. We hope this discussion can seed ongoing community engagement so that open education can benefit from all of the rights promised to creators under the law.
Learning Outcomes: In this session participants will:
- Be introduced to and critically explore the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use and Fair Dealing for Open Education
- Share and collaboratively explore use cases as well as opportunities and challenges related to copyright and fair use/fair dealing in open education
- Discuss opportunities for engaging with the work of the Code as open educators and as members of the open community
Project Director - Copyright, Education, and Open Licensing, American University Washington College of Law Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property
I work at American University Washington College of Law - at the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property - pijip.org. We're also the home of Creative Commons United States - the US Creative Commons Affiliate. I'm interested in public interest intellectual property... Read More →
