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Newsletter
June 2011
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Legal Guidance for ICT Use in Education, Research and External Engagement
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Welcome
Welcome to the June 2011 JISC Legal newsletter for professionals working in HE, FE and specialist colleges.
Featured News
We’ve just launched a brand new training service for educational professioals.
JISC Legal Plus will deliver competitively-priced staff development packages on copyright, data protection and e-safety to a range of professionals, including managers, administrators, ICT staff, lecturers, researchers, librarians and compliance officers. If you or your team need to keep up-to-date with ICT law as part of your role, then you’ll benefit from our training.
Have a browse at our
courses (remember to contact your CPD Officer if you see anything that interests you).
Our newsletter has three sections:
1. JISC Legal News Digest.
2. New JISC Legal Publications & Guidance.
3. Upcoming Events.
News
Here’s the latest news round-up:
· New Tool for Online Review of Patent Applications
· ICO Issues Guidance on New EU Cookie Law
· New Guide to Aid Best Use of University Intellectual Property
· Copyright Law Review Recommends Reform
· New Consultation on Cloud Computing
· Have You Signed Away Your Rights?
· ICO Urges Organisations to 'Get to Grips' with Data Sharing
· Royal College of Art Launches Major New Online Resources
· Welsh Universities Continue to Wrestle with Plagiarism
New Tool for Online Review of Patent Applications
An innovative new tool designed to help improve the patent application process is being piloted by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO). Peer To Patent is an online system that aims to improve the quality of issued patents by enabling the public to supply the IPO with information relevant to assessing the claims of pending patent applicatons. The pilot connects an open network for community input to the legal decision-making process. The scientific and technology community supply information and research based on its expertise. The patent examiner makes the final determination on the basis of legal standards. The pilot gives experts the opportunity to comment on patent applications and share their vital expertise before patents are granted. It will also mean that inventions already known in the wider community will be filtered out more readily. The new tool will give the IPO access to a wider body of knowledge when deciding whether a patent should be granted. For further details, please visit the
Peer To Patent website.
ICO Issues Guidance on New EU Cookie Law
The UK government has revised the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which come into force in the UK on 26 May, to address new EU requirements. The Regulations make clear that businesses and organisations running websites in the UK need to get consent from visitors to their websites in order to store cookies on users’ computers. The ICO has published guidance on its approach to enforcing the new rules – as well as guidance on other new powers coming into force as part of the revised regulations. The ICO has decided on a balanced approach to regulation allowing a 'lead in' period for institutions and others to comply.
Further details can be found on the
ICO website.
New Guide to Aid Best Use of University Intellectual Property
The UK government has revised the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, which come into force in the UK on 26 May, to address new EU requirements. The Regulations make clear that businesses and organisations running websites in the UK need to get consent from visitors to their websites in order to store cookies on users’ computers. The ICO has published guidance on its approach to enforcing the new rules – as well as guidance on other new powers coming into force as part of the revised regulations. The ICO has decided on a balanced approach to regulation allowing a 'lead in' period for institutions and others to comply.
Further details can be found on the
ICO website.
Copyright Law Review Recommends Reform
The Hargreaves copyright law review calls for a loosening and simplification of some aspects of copyright law. The Review makes 10 recommendations designed to ensure that the UK has an IP framework best suited to supporting innovation and promoting economic growth in the digital age. It is claimed that the current system has failed to "keep pace" with the fast-moving digital economy creating "obstacles to important research, innovation and growth". With regard to orphaned works, content that does not have an identifiable author, the report recommends the establishment of a new intermediary agency that will act as a one-stop shop for clearing the use of copyright content. The proposal could allow the use of archive material that would previously not have been permitted to be used because of doubt about ownership. Other proposals include resolving the copyright anomaly that makes the downloading of a CD onto an MP3 player which is common practice although technically illegal. The report can be accessed on the
IPO website.
New Consultation on Cloud Computing
The European Commission has launched a consultation on cloud computing. This will feed into the European cloud computing strategy due to be presented in 2012. One of the aims of the strategy is to clarify the legal conditions needed to enable take-up of cloud computing. The consultation gives colleges and universities the opportunity to contribute their views on how to fully benefit from cloud computing, as well as discussing where they or their institution stands with regard to cloud computing and the benefits and challenges it presents. Meantime, the US Department of Commerce, through its National Institute of Standards and Technology, has published a Draft Cloud Computing Synopsis and Recommendations. The document aims to describe cloud systems and discusses their strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and risks. it also gives recommendations on how and when cloud computing is an appropriate tool. Furthermore, it indicates the limits of current knowledge and areas for future analysis. The document recognises data protection and security issues (albeit from a US perspective, so it should be read with this is mind) and will be of interest to university and college management considering increased use of cloud computing services.
EU
press release and links to the consultation and background papers.
NIST Draft Cloud Computing
Synopsis and Recommendations.
Have You Signed Away Your Rights?
Users of popular online photo-sharing service Twitpic may have unwittingly signed away the rights to their own images. Ambiguity over who would profit from a newsworthy photograph remains even after a statement by Twitpic (a web service that lets users share photos and videos in real-time) that account holders retain ownership of the copyright to their images. Although users may retain copyright, by signing up to Twitpic they agree to let the service distribute their images to the company's partners. This is a timely reminder to FE and HE institutions to prompt their learners to stop, think and check the fine print before they sign up to an online service, especially one where they are either uploading content or providing personal data. Further details on this story can be found on the BBC website.
ICO Urges Organisations to 'Get to Grips' with Data Sharing
Institutions who share data might be interested in the ICO's latest publication. They have published a statutory code of practice on data sharing by public sector bodies, businesses and other organisations. The code explains how the Data Protection Act 1998 applies to the sharing of personal data and offers good practical guidance that is helpful to all organisations. Furthermore, it gives straightforward examples on the types of sharing activities covered by the code.
The Information Commissioner, Christopher Graham, stated that "sharing data can play an important role in providing an efficient service to consumers in both the public and private sector". What’s more, he urged all private and public sector organisations that share information "to get to grips with the code without delay so they can be sure that they are getting it right". Any data controller who is involved in the sharing of personal data is subject to the code, including FE and HE institutions.
The code is available from the ICO website.
Royal College of Art Launches Major New Online Resources
The Royal College of Art has launched two major new online resources that will be useful to educational professionals. The collections of digitised images will make significant works of art freely available for the first time. The Record of Student Work is a rare collection of over 30,000 slides of early student work by British artists such as David Hockney and Tracey Emin. In addition, over a thousand works from the Royal College of Art Collection have also been digitised.
The collections have been made available through a new digitisation project accessible through the Visual Arts Data Service (VADS). Neil Parkinson, Special Collections Manager, stated: “The College believes in making the images available as widely as possible on a non-commercial basis for the purposes of learning, teaching and research”. This resource has made archive student work available to the public. The JISC Legal report on this topic, 'Investigation into Student Work and IPR', can be accessed here.
For more information about using audio-visual resources as part of teaching and learning, please visit JISC Digital Media.
View The Royal College of Art Record of Student Work.
View The Royal College of Art Collection.
Welsh Universities Continue to Wrestle with Plagiarism
A recent freedom of information request has revealed that plagiarism is still a problem for some Welsh universities. Despite recent software innovations for identifying copied work, it seems that a significant number of students are still guilty of academic dishonesty. The original FOI request, made to six universities in Wales, asked for details of how many students had been disciplined for plagiarism over a three year period. The figures show that, between 2008 and 2011, 927 students were found guilty of copying materials. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers said that the figures were "disturbing". As a result, there have been calls for Welsh universities to develop consistent strategies for dealing with the issue.
To read the full article, visit the BBC website.
JISC Legal has a range of guidance materials available on how HE and FE institutions can deal with FOI requests.
Publications & Guidance
The latest JISC Legal resources freely available from our website are:
Recording Lectures and Screencasts webcast (available for streaming and downloading)
Streamed live on 13 April 2011, our free Recording Lectures and Screencasts webcast can now be accessed in captioned, bite-sized segments. Presented as a lively panel discussion, with experts from JISC Legal, JISC Digital Media and JISC Techdis, this webcast is a practical, relevant guide to the legal, technical and accessibility issues involved in recording lectures and screencasts (please note that the downloadable version is hosted by Vimeo and is uncaptioned).
Events
This month, we’ll be participating at the following event:
CILIPS Annual Conference 2011 (07/06/2011 to 08/06/2011, Glasgow)
Our Service Manager, Jason Miles-Campbell, will be presenting on copyright at the annual CILIPS (Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) conference. Conference strands will include Digital Libraries, Reader Development and Professional Practice.
Contact Us
For general enquiries, please contact us on 0141 548 4939 or email us at info@jisclegal.ac.uk.
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Give us your Feedback
We’d love to hear what you think of our newsletter. Please email us at feedback@jisclegal.ac.uk with ‘Newsletter’ in the subject line.
Further Information
JISC Legal is a JISC Advance service.
JISC Legal is hosted by the University of Strathclyde, a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC015263.