Web 2.0 Untangled: Ethics and law

Eric Davies talked about Web 2.0: Weaving ethics and law at the #web2entangled conference in Oxford that I am attending today. This presentation identified how may issues there were, and how few of them were really resolved. He started by asking us to talk amongst ourselves about what ethics meant. He defined it as "moral coices and the values that lie behind them", whilst laws were "agreed principles established by law and society".
Meanwhile, Web 2.0 is enabler of creative change - enabling distributed co-creation and so forth. He cited Shoshana Zuboff (Creating value in the age of distributed capitalism): with the focus now on individual creation. Eric characterised this as a mutation in the producion/creation process. This brings empowerment, but also responsibility, to the individual. However, the implications for organisations, as well as individuals, have not really yet been explored properly.
In terms of education he saw the mutation manifesting as e-scholarship, and changes in approach to learning and teaching. Eric mentioned Badrul Khan's framework for e-learning does include ethical aspects, which concern "social and political influence, cultural diversity, bias, geographical diversity, learner diversity, information accessibility, etiquette, and the legal issues." (quoted here). He also mentioned other studies which have revealed the concerns about Web 2.0 (such as identity, authority and security) and ways in which Web 2.0 has been used in education (e.g. building relationships, showcasing work). In the latter context, problems that have emerged include ownership issues, disruptive interaction, illegitimate use of content, protecting the anonymity of students and generally protecting their space.
Therefore key issues are: trust, privacy, data protection, copyright, plagiarism, unacceptable use (in terms of content and activity) and diversity (cultural diversity, accessibility etc.). In terms of unacceptable use, there are all sorts of ways in whichthe law could be broken, or local acceptable use guidelines could be breached, from statements that could be seen as inciting terrorism or were libelous, through to unacceptable advertising. Eric identified the great tension between enabling and regulating, with monitoring bringing its own concerns (e.g. privacy and censorship). This was seen as a big problem area that was not really being grappled with adequately.
Photo by Sheila Webber: Iced leaves in the grounds of Wolfson College, Oxford, this morning.

Netskills Schools Information Literacy Projects

I forgot to report that Netskills announced a month or so ago that they had published final reports on two projects, one on a programme of workshops Exploring and Deterring Plagiarism in Schools. There is a report and a description of the workshop.

Similarly, Netskills first did an online survey on teachers' information use, followed up by interviews, and then ran two pilot workshops on Information Skills for Teachers, aimed at secondary school teachers (I think that would be "K12" in the USA). Go to: http://www.netskills.ac.uk/content/
projects/eduserv-info-lit/index.html

Photo by Sheila Webber: Plane trees at dusk, Blackheath, December 2006.

eIFL Handbook on Copyright and Related Issues for Libraries

The eIFL (Electronic Information for Libraries) Handbook on Copyright and Related Issues for Libraries has been published. "Sponsored by the UNESCO Information for All Programme, this is a practical guide to topical legal questions affecting the information work of libraries in the fast moving digital environment. Each topic is described briefly, the main policy aspectsfor libraries are outlined, and there are links to library policystatements for further reading. Where there are special issues for developing or transition countries, these are covered." The complete Handbook, as well individual chapters (available as web pages or in pdf), can be downloaded from the eIFL website: http://www.eifl.net/services/handbook.htm

eIFL is interesting in itself: it arose out of a Soros foundation initiative and its members are "local library consortia that are in charge of national licenses for e-resources", with an emphasis on Eastern & Central Europe and Africa.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Stockghyll waterfall, Ambleside, January 2007.

Recording & blogging talks

Yesterday (Tuesday) rather than blogging I posted a comment on Brian Kelly's blog entry about Being blogged at an event. I won't reproduce the comments, but the entry stimulates a whole raft of thoughts about: copyright; politeness; attention; & approaches to teaching & presenting. Do people mind being faced with an audience of people apparently immersed in their laptops? Should we, in fact, be planning for how we can help students record their thoughts and our sayings in different ways? (note taking is a skill that many people don't seem to have by the time they come to university).

Do we need to be saying more about rights & permissions at the start of talks and lectures, since it is increasingly easy for students and audience members to be taking recordings and sharing them with friends or on blogs and youtube? If people record a whole session, which as far as I'm concerned would often include other discussion and presentation from students, do people realise that everyone who contributes has intellectual property rights? Unsurprisingly, Graham Cornish, who talked to students here about copyright issues yesterday, made some clear statements about the rights and permissions associated with the powerpoint he presented. Graham was with the British Library as their copyright guru for many years, and now he works freeklance; his website is http://www.copyrightcircle.co.uk/. By the way, a useful site for UK copyright is http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy.htm

I would see knowledge and thought about such issues as being part of information literacy, and obviously many of the IL frameworks list ethical and legal issues as part of IL. One thing that struck me during Graham's talk is the need to be clear about the differences between students infringing copyright and students plagiarising, as I think it is possible to confuse the two if you don't go into enough depth about copyright. Although intellectual property is often seen as a daunting area, I have found that students may actually be interested in exploring it, especially where it relates to topical issues such as downloading music and uploading videos.

Photo by Sheila Webber: Sheffield Uni campus, Dec 2006. Not sure if this photo works or not.