Policy Plan for Meeting Copyright Regulations in the School of Computing and Information Sciences at Florida International University

Catherine Hernandez
Sep 12, 2005
ISLT 7366, Technology Leadership
Professor Anita Phipps

At the university level there is a common belief that graduate students, faculty and instructors understand the importance of abiding by copyright regulations. In actual fact, this is probably not the case. Additionally, it is likely that undergraduate students are not as well versed in these matters as they should be when they enter the university community and might not be getting sufficient information and exposure to copyright issues. 

My area of influence is the School of Computing and Information Sciences within Florida International University and my user base consists of all students (graduate and undergraduate), faculty and instructors, technical support staff and administrative staff. 

A policy document was recently created primarily to outline Lab Usage Policy, but was intentionally broad so that it could apply to all members of the CIS user community. That statement (http://www.aul.fiu.edu/policies/) contains only a brief mention of copyright rules and generally assumes that users will apply common sense when using material developed by others. In terms of copyright law, this may not be sufficient information. 

The simplest and most effective way to improve how we educate users about copyright uses and other technical support matters would be to include this information in a Service Level Agreement (SLA). Creation of a concise SLA would establish a set of expectations for users and outline a set of policies and guidelines they are expected to operate within. My plan to educate my user base about copyright issues is to have an SLA delivered to them upon hire or beginning their academic program. One aspect of this document would define copyright and state our expectation that they abide by the established law. Rather than recreate policy and possibly create confusion, I would document and refer to the stated University policy. This SLA coupled with other exposure the user community receives would be sufficient to make people aware of their responsibility to abide by copyright law.

Supporting copyright education or information in the School and the University includes:

Undergraduate students within CIS are required to complete a course as part of the curriculum: CGS 3092:  Professional Ethic and Social Issues in Computer Science
	
New Faculty and Instructors are required to attend a training session when they are hired. I have not been able to confirm whether there is an explicit mention of copyright matters in that session, but can suggest that a discussion be included. 

The FIU Library site has a clear link from the Faculty Resources page that discusses copyright law: http://weblib.fiu.edu/level2.cfm?article_id=688&id=65

FIU online students have a resource page dedicated to copyright law, so even if they are virtual students, there are references addressed to them: 
http://oasis.fiu.edu/
http://oasis.fiu.edu/Ch7/ch7page2.htm

My own technical support staff would be trained in how to support the SLA and would be informed that while they are expected to abide by all policies as students and users, they are also expected to model these policies to others in the department. This will be an effective tool if used properly, since the tech support staff encounter all levels of the user base and are in a unique position to education and inform.