This paper, “The Digital Learning Challenge: Obstacles to Educational Uses of Copyrighted Material in the Digital Age”, reports on a study by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, which was supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The study examined whether educational uses of digital information are hampered by the restrictions of copyright.

The paper begins by discussing how digital technology, particularly the Internet, has opened up new opportunities for teaching and learning by making information and educational content easily available, and making it accessible to a much broader audience than in the past. The paper emphasizes that “new technology allows everyone to become teachers and students – creating digital learning tools, disseminating them broadly through the internet, and learning from digital content promulgated by others”.

The paper provides examples of projects which illustrate the potential that digital learning has to transform education, such as the Berkman Centre’s “H2O” project and Wikipedia, and then focuses on four digital learning cases (projects), describing the conflicts between the objectives of these projects and copyright law.

Some aspects of copyright law are explained in the paper, including the fact that copyright law does not prohibit teachers who create a teaching resource, such as a PowerPoint, from showing it in their own classes, even if it contains copyrighted content (for example a copyrighted photograph).

However, as the paper points out, although the educational use exceptions in copyright law (the fair use doctrine) generally protect teachers and educators from liability, the teachers and educators are not permitted to share teaching resources they have created with other teachers if those teaching resources contain copyrighted content.

The paper explains that apart from restricting sharing of teaching and learning materials, copyright law has also led to extensive adoption of digital rights management technology which lock up content, such as DRM systems on DVDs. Such systems restrict the ability of teachers to utilize digital content in the classroom.

The findings of the study was that copyright law provisions and the business and institutional structures shaped by that law, are significant obstacles to the use of digital technology and digital information in education.

The paper concludes with a discussion of options for improving the situation, including legal reform, technological improvements in the rights clearance process, educator agreement on best practices, and increased use of open access distribution.

Citation:

McGeveran, William and Fisher, William W., "The Digital Learning Challenge: Obstacles to Educational Uses of Copyrighted Material in the Digital Age" (August 2006). Berkman Center Research Publication No. 2006-09 Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=923465

View the paper:

• Social Science Research Network

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=923465

Related links:

• Copy rights and wrongs: information for educators

http://www2.unescobkk.org/education/ict/v2_2/detail.asp?id=19624

• Copyright and Distance Education Toolkit

http://www2.unescobkk.org/education/ict/v2_2/detail.asp?id=13345