University service provider Blackboard has collaborated with the Copyright Clearance Center to create a software program that will make it easier for faculty to comply with copyright law, Blackboard announced Tuesday.
The program, which works through the System Web site, will allow educators to quickly determine whether or not they are cleared to use specific academic documents.
"The idea of the product is to make licensing easy and bring clarity to the process," said Tim Bowen, product marketing manager at the Copyright Clearance Center. The center prearranges agreement with publishers regarding distribution and fees. "Within seconds, you can get a reply letting you know if you have the proper clearance," he said.
The new service first became available Tuesday for some of Blackboard's clients, but the University may not have the service until next semester.
The service allows faculty members to obtain permission more easily from the clearance center, which serves as an intermediary between authors, publishers or other content creators and the institutions wishing to download and distribute documents. Professors have been aching for a more efficient way to provide materials since the Internet was first used to aid in teaching, said Jan Poston Day, a director with one of Blackboard's programs.
Blackboard, which serves some 2,200 education institutions, will provide the new service through Blackboard Building Blocks, pieces of software installed on the Blackboard server that allow information to be shared among all participating clients.
Professors will be able to search close to 1.75 million titles, and within seconds determine the availability of the desired content.
Faculty members, like psychology professor Rebecca Bigler, often find it difficult to obtain the documents they want for use in class. Professors look for journals, scholarly articles and specific chapters within textbooks when compiling class materials at the beginning of a semester.
"You have to go through a serious process," Bigler said. "I would gather up the original sources and take them to the copy center saying it's for educational use. Then you have to wait."
Bigler also agreed that some professors may not want to post materials simply because of the difficult process required to obtain clearance.
"It should be quick and free and painless," she said.
Rather than making a librarian or another school official obtain copyright clearance, under the new service, professors would place a request by opening the course control panel within the Blackboard Web site, Bowen said.
"Once clearance is given," he said, "the person or library who made the request would be invoiced."
The fee, which varies depending on the number of pages requested and the number of students receiving the materials, would be paid to the Copyright Clearance Center, who would pay the publisher.
"Copyrights are something that we all have to deal with," Day said. "But this makes it a lot easier."
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