Friday, December 27, 2013

Copyright for Information Professionals (IST 735), weeks 10-14

{Because I've copied text in from MS Word, I suspect the fonts below are going to be wonky or inconsistent.  My apologies.}

letter CThe semester is over and it is time for me to to finish blogging about the copyright class that I taught this fall...and what I want to talk about are the assignments.

This year, I changed some of the assignments and pushed the students outside of their comfort zone.  For example, I had them create a one-page explanation of a section of the law, with the idea that this explanation would be understandable by anyone.  A few students did theirs as infographs!  The idea around the one-page was for them to understand the law well enough that they could explain it simply.

They also developed a brief on a current copyright issue, wrote about a copyright-related court case, and developed a training plan to be used to train others about copyright.  Some students had not written lesson plans before, which was needed for that last assignment, and so some were really outside of their comfort zone!

What impressed me was that students delved deep into the law and into resources that are available about copyright. The scoured the Internet looking for resources and ideas, and I was amazed at what they found.  There is a lot more good content available on copyright than I realized.  (And I'll be sharing some of them in upcoming blog posts.)  I'm also impressed with their understanding of the law and their ability to communicate it to others, which is not always an easy task.  Yes...I threw them a challenging semester and they thrived in it.

All of these assignments are good pieces for their portfolios.  These pieces demonstrate their knowledge of copyright law; their ability to analyze and write; and their ability to understand how to pass their knowledge onto others.  I know that instruction is a huge need in many libraries, so those training plans can be used to demonstrate that they understand that need and are ready to help meet it. [BTW looking for a soon-to-be MLIS graduate with copyright knowledge?   Let me know.]

READ doorMandatory Readings: (Please excuse any font discrepancies.)

Week #10 - Exerting Your Copy Rights & Copyright Court Cases
Week #11 - Copyright and Sound Recordings
Week #12 - Archives, Risk & Case Study
  • Crews. Copyright Law for Librarians and Educators. Ch. 17.
  • Hirtle. Copyright and Cultural Institutions. Chapters 10-11
Week #13 - Licensing
Old City architectureWeek #14 - Educating Your Colleagues and Users (including library notices), and Staying Up-to-Date
Related posts (or a walk through this class):

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