Universities will take 鈥渞isks鈥� on copyright and intellectual property rights infringement when recording lectures because there is still so much 鈥渦ncertainty鈥� within the sector as to what is appropriate policy, according to the authors of new research into the issue.

The paper 鈥淟ecture recording in higher education: risky business or evolving open practice鈥澛爎eported that nearly three-quarters of UK institutions started lecture recording in 2016, but 40 per cent of respondents to the report鈥檚 survey said that their institutions only 鈥渒ind of鈥� had policy documents on the topic.

Jane Secker, co-author of the paper and copyright and digital literacy adviser at the London School of Economics, told 探花视频 that聽the topic remained 鈥渁n evolving area鈥�.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not so much that institutions don鈥檛 have copyright policies, [it鈥檚] whether they had one [relating] to lecture recording,鈥� she said. 鈥淎bout a third of them have done [one], some people said they were developing one, a third said they didn鈥檛 have one. A lot of the reason [for this] is that there鈥檚 still a lot of uncertainty.鈥�

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鈥淲hen we were speaking to people at Jisc [the UK body that supports institutions鈥� use of digital technologies] about their guidance, there was a sense that鈥n a private space, you may take greater risks [with lecture recording] than you would if you were putting together a Mooc (massive open online course).鈥�

Their report, which surveyed 33 universities, found in almost all cases that the responsibility for copyright issues in lecture content lay with the lecturer but a 鈥渟ignificant amount of the policy documents did not make these responsibilities clear鈥�. The paper recommends that universities 鈥渕ake clear鈥� who is responsible, but also 鈥減rovide supportive copyright advice鈥n issues such as the use of third party material in recorded lectures鈥�.

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Chris Morrison, co-author and copyright compliance and licensing officer at the University of Kent, said that institutions had to determine where they funnelled their resources.

鈥淚t makes more sense to put resources into [Mooc activities] than it does trying to get into every single lecture and come up with a determination of what is and isn鈥檛 legal, which isn鈥檛 always clear,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou have [cases] where the only way you would definitely know where the use of someone else鈥檚 content without their permission is legal is if there was to be legal action.

鈥淭here has been a process of trying to harmonise copyright law across Europe鈥ut what tends to happen with Moocs, they tend to rely on Creative Commons licences (enabling the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work), [so] it is possible to create resources that can be openly shared.鈥�

Ane Land酶y, academic librarian at the University of Bergen and a member of the International Copyright Literacy Network, said that although lecture recording was still in its infancy in Norway, there were similar issues there.

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鈥淚n the law faculty in my university, there is a lot of enthusiasm among staff to [record lectures], but they are experts on copyright law so they鈥檙e very careful as to whether they鈥檙e making it available,鈥� she told THE.

john.elmes@tesglobal.com