Freedom of Speech and the Internet: Rights and Responsibility

Citation

Arthur Mihram, G. (2000), "Freedom of Speech and the Internet: Rights and Responsibility", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 17 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2000.23917aac.002

Freedom of Speech and the Internet: Rights and Responsibility

G. Arthur Mihram

In this pre-conference seminar, the presenters, Amy Ginther, PhD and Rodney J. Petersen, Office of Information Technology, University of Maryland, described their "NETHICS" project [= NET/Ethics] hosted by the University of Maryland and dedicated to the promotion of responsible use of Internet technology http://www.umd.edu/NEThics

More specifically, this presentation could have been entitled "First Amendment & the Internet" since it dealt at the outset with the US Constitution's First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech..."

Being a lawyer, Peterson reviewed well the background which implicates not just Congress but also state legislatures, state agencies, and therefore state-operated universities who develop policies (e.g. handbooks, employment contracts) which might well be construed as constraining the freedom of speech. He did not explicitly mention that the First Amendment right (the free speech) is founded on the requirement that, as a republic, truth must be permitted to prevail, so that speech can hardly be suppressed without directly threatening the foundation of republican government. "Academic freedom" is, of course, this very same expression of an individual professor's right to seek without constraint the truth of any matter/subject being pursued.

They included in their presentation the term "netiquette", a term that perhaps should be employed more frequently in determining our behavior with the new computer-telephone communication medium which is rapidly becoming near-ubiquitous, because it helps distinguish between behaviors which we expect so as to ensure politeness and courtesy in discourse as opposed to those which may be illegal (e.g. violating copyright protection and/or fair use guidelines). Perhaps it would be well for one of us in academia to focus on just this issue: ethical behavior vis-à-vis the Internet versus illegal behaviors thereon.

They also raised the issue of morality in Internet use, explicitly raising the issue of pornography and/or indecency, noting that institutions (and their Web-connected libraries) need to establish policies to deal with morality, ethics, and law, all the while maintaining the goal of reaching truths (via freedom of speech, academic freedom).

The interesting case arises whenever a member (typically a student) uses university-based computers to dispatch and/or post material which may be objectionable because it attacks someone else's race or religion. After all, such a student may be doing nothing more than trying to understand why some other student's behavior should be acceptable when his own religious upbringing would have reached the conclusion that the behavior is wrong (immoral, or unethical, or illegal). This very issue is one drawing increasing academic enquiry (Rouner, 1999; Mihram and Mihram, 1999), including the earlier established recognition that religion itself has historically evolved (Toynbee, 1972).

Peterson and Ginther noted that the extension of the "First Amendment Right" beyond Congressional actions to those of states and their agencies has been founded on the 14th Amendment. In addition, Congress has recently been precluding the distribution of funds to state institutions who fail to provide "equal opportunity".

They clarified considerably the distinction between freedom of the press and freedom of speech, between libel and slander, but noting that the "freedom to speak" includes the spoken word, the written word, and any symbolic gesture or measure.

They added the interesting points that, in order for a spoken statement to be libelous, it must be conducted publicly, meaning that minimally there must be a third party within earshot. Libraries and academic institutions may need to be aware of such distinctions in establishing policies on computer-conducted communications, since understanding where an issue becomes a legal one ­ as opposed to one which is unethical or immoral ­ is of paramount concern.

Peterson and Ginther would perhaps be more helpful if their presentation (and/or their materials: http://www.umd.edu/NEThics/law/free) concluded with a categorization of institutional policies by noting the foundation of each: illegal behavior, unethical behavior, immoral behavior. Students, faculty, and staff would then begin to appreciate that the motivation for handbooks is not just an institutional effort to constrain behavior quite inexplicably, but rather to underscore the purposes of the university not only to conduct itself within the law but also to encourage rational discourse via courteous and polite communications electronically.

For example, many institutions are already placing imbedded "disclaimer messages" on electronic communications emanating from within their institution's computer users. The authors felt that those disclaimers may well be of value more because they educate their institutional users than because they provide legal protection for the institution.

One other point was raised in their post-presentation interaction with the audience: Peterson and Ginther had noted that some institutions had become concerned that posted on their institution's screens were comments by a student who found certain other religious practices and/or behaviors objectionable. What was pointed out from the floor was that perhaps such a student, perplexed by observed behavior which he or she had been taught through his or her own religious upbringing to be immoral, was merely doing nothing more than that which academia seeks to promote: viz. the search for truth(s), so that the student should be not punished but, rather, shown that the observed behavior might be deemed acceptable.

The Rights Stuff: Ownership in the Digital Academy

The seminar, presented by Erin Bates, Catheryn Boak, and Daryl A. Pieber of the NODE Learning Technologies Network, St Catherine and London, Ontario, Canada cboak@node.on.ca; http://theNode.org, was conducted less as a lecture and more in an audience-participation format with hypothetical case studies being presented. The audience was then segmented into sub-committees of four to six members who were to resolve the issue(s) arising in the particular case study, then report back to the general audience their conclusion. This format seemed a bit disconcerting, given that their handout material was so thoroughly prepared (36 pages!). Perhaps they were seeking to demonstrate the Socratic Method of teaching, in which case they probably succeeded because the audience became indeed engrossed in the subject of "intellectual property ownership in our digital age".

The NODE Learning Technologies Network, a Canadian not-for-profit organization, was established in Ontario in 1996 as a result of a grant from the province's Ministry of Education and Training. Though one might suspect that their report's impetus would be of pertinence strictly to Canadians, it is based considerably upon interviews with and citations of many American (USA!) colleagues.

Their presentation was remarkably well organized: e.g. when a "new" acronym (such as IP) was introduced, it was immediately translated (Intellectual Property).

The title of "Ownership in the Digital Academy" is in their minds virtually the same as "Copyright in the Digital Academy", though in their conclusion (NODE, 1999) they state "[Copy] Rights are at the heart of the matter, for ownership, despite its emotional significance, is of little consequence without the rights that go with it." They have viewed the matter in our Age of Telecommunications (Mihram, 1974) ­ with nowadays scanners making possible the ready copying and subsequent transmission of one person's work (IP) to another; and with Web-based materials posted on the Internet, therefore readily retrievable and then available for immediate re-transmission to others ­ in terms of three parties who might claim ownership to IP: the faculty (usually the author); the institution; and the staff (particularly as they may produce graphics and/or tables incorporated within a particular work).

They conclude, in a Section (NODE, 1999) unfortunately entitled "(IN) CONCLUSION", that institutional policy statements on IP should encourage innovation and that an institution should clearly communicate their intellectual property policies to faculty and staff, underscoring one of the report's most important points: it is clarity of IP policy which faculty (and staff) wish to see, particularly when it is clear that there is no institutional intent to forbid enquiry or to establish the truth about any matter. Hence it is a bit puzzling that their lucid report ends not with "Conclusions" but rather with "(In)Conclusions".

From the floor, it was added that there indeed exist technologies, such as digital watermarking (Mihram, G.A. and Mihram, D., 1999; Mihram, D. and Mihram, G.A., 1998), by which not only copyright registry and subsequent protection can be accomplished but also proof of transmission (copying!) of amounts of copyright-registered materials in excess of "fair-use" guidelines and expectations.

If one's own institution is currently grappling with ownership versus copyright issues, particularly with regard to "courseware" or "Web-based" institutional materials, your library and institutional administrators would do well to examine the "Learning Technologies Report" (NODE, 1999).

Intellectual Property and Copyright

Like the speakers in the NODE session, "The Rights Stuff: Ownership in the Digital Academy" (reviewed above), Janis H. Bruwelheide, Director of Instructional Technology, Montana State University, Bozeman, also emphasized the pertinence of the question "Who owns What?" in the context of copyright ownership. She reviewed the new Copyright Term Extension Act of October 1998, noting that new copyright protection exists for a 70-year period and is retroactive to publications pre-dating the act. She recommends that one access the American Library Association's Web page http://www.ala.org for details.

She also pointed out the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), adding that it allows "copyright management information" (cmi) to be placed on works, making it a Federal offense to remove any cmi-marking information. (There is now a $30 fee for the registration of copyright of art work.)

The DMCA permits libraries to make digital copies of deteriorating works, provided that the particular library always owns an original copy. She also quickly reviewed the May 1998 report of the Library of Congress to the Congress on distance education, noting that the report is quite pro-education.

Bruwelheide also called attention to Ken Crews' work on copyright agreements http://www.iupui.edu/~copyinfo/bio.html, which are being more frequently expected by universities of their graduate students. She can be contacted at janisb@montana.edu

Classification of IT Incidents to Measure Impact and Guide Policy Development

Mark S. Bruhn, Office of Vice President for Information Technology, Indiana University; and Rodney J. Petersen, Director of Policy and Planning, University of Maryland, assisted by panelist Amy Ginther of the Office of Information Technology at the University of Maryland, presented the results of their efforts to categorize information technology (IT) "incidents" in an attempt to understand the factors influencing the frequency and costs in computing (usually tele-computing) environments at universities. "Incidents" refer not to computer uses, but rather to what might be termed "computer abuses", such as abusing authentication or authorization procedures in order to enter or alter files and/or Web sites (e.g. Usenet spam, mass mail, chain mail, careless password use, copyright infringement, E-mail forgery and harassment, unauthorized network probes).

Originally referred to as ICAMP (Incident Cost Analysis and Modeling Project), the universities of the "Big 10" sports conference plus the University of Maryland have been seeking to "model" (to understand) the factors contributing to those university-based computer abuses. Their intent has been to analyze incidents and to understand their "costs" to the universities.

Among 30 selected incidents in 1998, 210 employees had to become included in the incidents' investigation and/or resolution, requiring 9,078 employee hours, affecting about 270,805 users at a cost of about $1,015,810 (i.e. about $33,000 per incident).

The ICAMP 1998 Final Report is available ($23.00) from Sandy Williams ( skwillia@cic.uiuc.edu).

Now under way is ICAMP-II, with additional participants being Stanford University and the University of Texas at Austin. The current study is to focus more on cataloging the databases which do provide the "incidents and will look more carefully at service interruptions and copyright violations". ICAMP-II's report will be available in February 2000 from Adriana Carroll at adrianac@umich.edu

I personally asked the panel whether they had been attempting to understand whether greater "supervision" of monitors (in, say, terminal bays in a library) or "passive supervision measures" such as the configuration of the terminals in such bays would reduce the number of these incidents. Their answer was no. However, they are rather certain that the "source" of most incidents is due to "anonymous access" by users of weak authentication requirements within the universities' computer environments.

I was then prompted to add there that perchance better, machine-specific "post-marking" within the universities' respective "intranets" might therefore provide an enhanced protection and reduction of incidents.

Unbundling the Academy: Higher Education as a Competitive Industry

In this concluding general session, Barry Munitz, formerly Chancellor of the California State University System and currently President and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, provided a quite provocative, though disturbing and hopefully provoking, presentation in which he implied that universities are beginning to "unbundle" their traditional institutional functions in order to compete with the increasing number of "electronic institutions" and/or "distance education" as they move from a "cottage industry monopoly" to a "competitive knowledge industry". He noted that such a new environment is creating new rules.

Though he feels that information technology (IT) is a critical asset regarding the strategies for computing in this environment, he provided a checklist of additional "survival strategies" which tertiary-level institutions should consider:

• •

  The global economy;

• •

  Increased aging of population;

• •

  Wider divergence of income;

• •

  Productivity (person-hour): the lowest for years!

He made a quite interesting observation (as an undergraduate, he majored in Classics) that Plato had stated that "the purpose of education is to make someone [know that they must] do what they have to do". Unfortunately, he then tagged this pertinent conclusion with a quote from Mark Twain [about never letting his schooling interfere with his education!] thereby leading many in the audience to perceive that a classicist could not sort out the relevant from the irrelevant.

It hardly helped for him to then add, presumably in the context of his current affiliation, that John P. Getty had given, as the three steps to success:

1. 1.

   Get up early;

2. 2.

   Work hard; and

3. 3.

   Discover oil.

Frankly, this writer/listener was a bit perplexed, for Munitz's message seemed to advise the audience that our tertiary-level academic institutions need themselves to enter the growing "education industry", particularly that arising as a result of "distance education", which he views as a "competition" to academia. He also noted his feeling that major institutions will no longer dominate the landscape.

One feels compelled to remark that, if he be right, then academia itself (particularly those faculties dealing with the arts, the sciences, and the letters) must not be meeting its own goals/expectations.

He reviewed the historical changes in American education, from clergy-based institutions, to land-grant institutions (Morrill Act of the 1860s) to the German model such as Johns Hopkins. After World War II, with the GI Bill, education became massive. Then followed, more massively, the junior colleges and now tele-communications. But with tele-communications it is felt that one only needs to "find knowledge", be engaged in "problem solving", and build motivational focus. He referred to the book, The Monster under the Bed (Davis and Botkin, 1994), which points to the fact that the major providers of this "education" no longer typically educate at all. He added that the "Phoenixes" go for the market and do not offer degrees in Classics, for example. He noted as well that some of the "7 by 24" (7 days a week, 24 hours a day) institutions are like electronic stealth warriors even finding ways to claim accreditation.

This writer feels that the perceived "success" of the "distance-learning institutes" probably resides in their providing training, rather than education. Historically speaking, this may have been the result of our having, in the nineteenth century, accredited "engineering/polytechnic institutes" as degree-granting (rather than certificate-issuing) institutions. Then, beginning at the Wharton School (within Benjamin Franklin's University of Pennsylvania; Mihram, 1975) in the late nineteenth century, business-and-management-training institutes became degree-granting institutions.

It would be a welcome result if a corollary to the result of the current "competition" between academia and "distance education" would be a reduction of the number of institutions accredited to grant degrees.

Perhaps Munitz had intended to imply that such a review of the accreditation process is needed, for he did rather belittle the process in his presentation. If degree-granting arts-sciences-letters programs in academia were (still) ensuring that every graduating student not only had been taken several times to the forefront of human knowledge (Mihram, 1975) but also had learned how to learn ("anything"), then perchance all could recognize that every such graduate could indeed immediately "find a job", the very clause that seems to cause students to flock to such training schools as are being exemplified by the "distance education" institutes.

One should add that perhaps Munitz's notion of "unbundling" academia might reflect such a desire, though he did not explicitly state this. If many university-level programs, such as social work, engineering, business/ management, gerontology, theater, Cinema/TV, journalism, broadcasting, and architecture, were to become only certificate-issuers rather than degree-grantors, the unbundling might indeed be a welcome surprise.

One might review the tapes of the 1998 AAAS Meeting in Philadelphia, at which the President of the National Academy of Engineering essentially called for a "dismantling" of undergraduate engineering schools, provided that every graduate of the resulting academic establishment (arts/letters/sciences/engineering) is to be scientifically/technologically conversant!

One additional observation: Munitz's invocation of Plato should have included the fact that Plato not only wrote The Republic but also used the Greek term for "cybernetics" ("to hold the rudder", to be at the helm, to govern), dealing with governorship, statesmanship. Indeed, the French scientist Ampère also introduced the term "cybernétique" to mean "the very art of governing and of deciding in each case not just what can but what must be done". Reflecting on Munitz's earlier quote from Plato (see above) and recalling that Thomas Jefferson had noted that the motto not only of (his) University of Virginia but also of (our) American republic reads,

For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may leadNor to tolerate error so long as Reason is left free to correct it,

then one can begin to understand that academic freedom (in the university) and freedom of speech (in the republic) are of a common origin: viz. as the desire to search for and follow truth(s) dealing with the world, including the social world, about us.

"Cybernetics" means much more than just being computer-connected.

A View from the Hill to the States

The goal of this session was to provide an overview of the initiatives and legislation considered by the current Congress and federal agencies over the past year. The growing influence of state lawmakers/regulators on the deployment of advanced information technology was also a topic to be discussed. However, Garret Sern, Policy Analyst at EDUCAUSE, dwelt primarily on topics such as "cybersquatting", the continuing practice of registering an "E-mail address" such as "cocacola. com" in the hopes that the site can then be sold to an obviously interested party. But others register sites such as "yalestinks.org", perhaps with political motivation. Legislation has been under debate in several state legislatures so as to require the "good faith" of the registrant when filing for name-registration. For information regarding this question see: "Cybersquatting" http://advertising lawyer.wld.com/cybersqt.htm; "Cybersquatting legislation" http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/ctg427.htm; and "Controversial Anti-Cybersquatting Act in Senate Hearings http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article/0,1087,3_167731,00.html

Just before Thanksgiving, Congress passed, and on November 29, 1999, the President signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act for FY 2000 (Public Law no. 106-113, 113 Stat. 1501). Included in the appropriations measure is the Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999. One title of the Intellectual Property legislation is the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). The ACPA is directed specifically at any individual who:

1. 1.

   Has a bad faith intent to profit from the mark; and

2. 2.

   Registers, traffics in, or uses a domain name that is:

   • •

     identical or confusingly similar to a distinctive mark (e.g. www.notredame.com connects to a time share seller; www. suny.com connects to a dating service);

   • •

     dilutive of a famous mark; or

   • •

     subject to the special protection granted to the Red Cross and Olympic mark.

The reader will find, on the EDUCAUSE Web site, a full-text copy of the November 29, 1999 memorandum (9 pp.) by Sheldon Steinbach, Attorney at Law, to Kenneth Solomon and Mitchell Stabbe (unidentified), titled "New Tools to Combat Cybersquatters" http://www.educause.edu/policy/ace112999.pdfhad

EDUCAUSE itself is seeking to become a clearinghouse for these domain names within the ".edu" net, just as the Federal government "controls" the ".gov" net. For example, moves are under way to grant two-year colleges, in addition to the accredited four-year degree-granting institutions, addresses (domains) within the ".edu" net.

Of course, this issue is merely another giving rise to the need to establish governmentally-secured (if not also -operated) "electronic post offices and post roads" (Mihram, D. and Mihram, G. A., 1998 and 1999), to which should be added a natural concern regarding espionage being conducted over the international Internet. The recommended electronic postmark (Mihram, G.A. and Mihram, D., 1999) could go far to alleviate concerns of such espionage, perhaps quite well illustrated by Congressman Cox's bipartisan report on Chinese espionage and its connection with S. Berger within the White House.

The session also included reference to Congressman Howard Cobb's HR 354, a bill to be termed the Anti-Piracy Act.

With respect to the states, it was also noted that a special Southern Governors' network is being undertaken so as to assist with the distribution of medical resources: tele-medicine. More generally, this EDUCAUSE-organized session noted the readiness of state Legislatures to intervene in establishing telecommunications, including Internet policy.

How Did He Get to See That? Authorization on the Web

A Web authorization attribute management system permits the delegating of Web service authorization to persons throughout the university. Some authorized services include viewing of students' grades, accessing commercial software, accessing library external databases based outside of campus, and sending bulk electronic mail to a "dynamic" list of persons, classes, and faculty, to name just three groups. When an institution decides to use electronic instruction, a comprehensive middleware approach is required to manage the creation of student/staff resources as well as access to those resources. Authorization is built on a NetID (Network Identifier) authentication available to every member of the university community. This electronic environment requires methods of delegating authority electronically.

Albert Steiner, Coordinator of Distributed Computing, Northwestern University, reviewed the pertinent issues of authorization and authentication (Who is the user?), noting that a great deal of trust is involved when dealing with network-based resources. For example:

• •

  network-based class resources must often be restricted to students, instructors, and others related to the course;

• •

  copyright restrictions and intellectual property rights must be honored by an authorization's infrastructure;

• •

  class and sub-organization membership information must be leveraged from information gathered and controlled by registrars and human resource departments;

• •

  the ability to send bulk e-mail must also be restricted to an arbitrary group of persons for individual schools and organizations;

• •

  the person(s) controlling each group's membership must also be controlled by an authorization group.

Some attributes are relatively permanent; others are so transient that their databases are rebuilt each night. Also, it is important that the interface for management is unobtrusive and intuitive.

Steiner described the Northwestern University's authentication/authorization system, implemented in 1998, noting that they are restricting access only to class lists. Northwestern University started Web authorization with student access to their own grades as part of the "Mandarin Consortium". Students used usernames called NetIDs (network identifiers) for accessing their grades and their e-mail. Gradually the power of this NetID was expanded to the authorizations agents of deans. The granting of new passwords for NetIDs was also delegated to certain schools. The SNAP (simple network account process, in development in C++ on HPUX UNIX for about five years) also controls the creation of accounts on about 20 UNIX and NT hosts. The passwords for all of these hosts are synchronized (users have the same username and password). Users get accounts on specific machines depending on authorization attributes. A proxy authorization process also allows authorized NetIDs to access library external vendor databases when using IP addresses outside the Northwestern University domain.

His full report will be available at http://charlotte.acns.nwu.edu/asteiner/educause99.html, in which a description of the attributes used to restrict access can be found.

Digital Identity

The Roundtable discussion, conducted by David Wasley, Information Infrastructure Planner, Office of the President, University of California, and Jeffrey Schiller, Network Manager at MIT, dealt primarily with the University of California's system's efforts to protect and to maintain the integrity of the University's (= unverified) records, particularly registrar records at the several institutions. Difficulties arise when students move from one school to another, perhaps having married (changing names) so that their identity is difficult to maintain electronically.

Wasley distributed a list of questions relating to the meaning of "identity" and how digital credentials can lead to a validation of identity:

• •

  What credentials exist today that are issued or expected by our campuses? How are they used within the operation of the university?

• •

  What are essential elements (attributes, roles) of "identity" that a credential should carry? How many credentials do we need?

• •

  What are campuses using today for access control to applications or restricted information? How are these controls administered?

• •

  What is a "digital credential"? How would one help us manage our information resources? Who should issue such credentials?

• •

  What technologies exist to support "digital credentials"?

• •

  What infrastructure services are necessary to support digital credentials and identity?

• •

  What are some of the planning issues?

• •

  How does the institution need to change to accommodate all of this?

• •

  What are the potential liabilities? What are potential liabilities if we do not deploy a strong digital identity infrastructure?

The discussion was kept lively by an audience member of the skeptical variety, seeking to show that he could still conceive of a situation where someone with malicious intent could, despite all the identifiers, still deceive the registrar's computer regarding his or her true identity.

Unfortunately, no perceptible solution of the difficulty of maintaining a foolproof set of identifiers so as to identify the source of an electronic enquiry was presented by the panelists.

The University of California is conducting "trials" of one or two institutions before implementing the resulting record-maintenance and protection procedures, which will not likely be deemed completed for four or five years.

David Wasley may be contacted at david.wasley@ucop.edu

Copyright Ownership Policies in a Digital Environment

One topic facing research universities currently is the ownership and control of the scholarly material created by faculty, particularly those created in connection with Web-based courses. Rodney J. Peterson, Director of Policy and Planning, University of Maryland, makes clear that the authors of syllabuses, lectures, demos, and presentations, even illustrations in a Web-based course, are almost always the owners of the corresponding copyrights. The issues of whether one is an employee, undertaking "work done for hire" or whether a work has been "commissioned" naturally arise.

Peterson has a Web site on copyright ownership, called "©opyown", linking policies at 100 research universities and institutions: http://www.umd.edu/copyown

His presentation was a report of a study which he undertook not just for the University of Maryland but also for the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The study focuses upon institutions that are members of ARL and the Association of American Universities (AAU). He searched for those institutions' Web-based copyright ownership policies, where much "sorting out" is under way so as to determine ownership of a course: the university; the faculty member; university staff; students; grantors. While he hopes that the research will be useful to institutions beyond ARL and AAU membership, data-collection activities have been limited to that population. Policies or information at his site from non-ARL/AAU member institutions are provided for information only and have not been verified or confirmed for accuracy.

His Web site and the underlying research are devoted to understanding the emerging conflicts over copyright ownership within the higher education community, and seeking to find appropriate solutions with which everyone can live. The Web site is intended to serve as a resource for anyone struggling with such issues as well as a forum where productive dialog can occur. According to Peterson it is not his intent to drive any one particular viewpoint at the expense of another. Rather, by exposing all of the perspectives and interests at stake it is hoped that colleges and universities can make informed decisions about policy and practice.

A visit to his Web site reveals a wealth of information about the policies, reports, and guidelines developed by a large number of institutions. His "Resources" section includes a variety of links to broad areas such as:

• •

  AAU/ARL member homepages.

• •

  AAU/ARL technology transfer offices.

• •

  Articles and commentaries.

• •

  Association committees and task force reports.

• •

  College and university committees and task force reports.

• •

  Conflict of interest and commitment policy collection.

• •

  Copyright education programs.

• •

  Distance education.

• •

  Faculty issues and concerns.

• •

  Patent policy collection.

• •

  Professional associations and organizations.

• •

  Sample agreements.

• •

  Scholarly communications and publishing.

• •

  Statements of principles.

• •

  Teacher exception to work made for hire.

• •

  Technology transfer information.

• •

  Trademark policy collection.

• •

  Use of copyrighted works policy collection.

• •

  Work made for hire.

Petersen holds a law degree and is completing a PhD in higher education policy, planning, and administration at the University of Maryland. He referred the audience to Kenneth D. Crews' book, Copyright, Fair Use, and the Challenge for Universities: Promoting the Progress of Higher Education (University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL, 1993).

Digitally Invested: Teaching and Learning with Online Images

The authors, Miriam E. Guthrie, Instructional Technologist, and Sharon P. Pitt, Director, Center for InstructionalTechnology, James Madison University, are seeking to provide a "decision algorithm" for administrators, one which would provide a description of the procedure for storing and cataloging "images" (as opposed to text) in the equivalent of an "electronic university archive", though admitting that some images might be so posted with the intent that they be more specifically available during the conduct of one professor's course (for, say, the current term).

They seek to allow faculty, however, to add interpretive comments with each image, and, as is typical for presentations and instruction in art, to permit two images to be on the monitor's screen simultaneously. Even we mathematicians can see the advantage of being able to display the effects which occur when one changes the values of the parameters in the quadratic equation so as to produce, first a circle, then an ellipse ... then a hyperbole ­ without having to produce clouds of chalk dust while erasing one, while drawing the next, anticipating the need or space for the third ....

The effort at James Madison University was prompted by the introduction of a "General Education" program for undergraduates. Other institutions that have taken this approach, often motivated by a desire to have undergraduates hear lectures from more senior faculty, might do well to examine this report which, according to the speakers, is available at http://www.cmm2.jmu.edu/cit/ However, when accessed the site is currently password protected. A request for a printed copy of the report might be more productive.

An alternative to the process utilized by Guthrie and Pitt is membership in AMICO (the Art Museum Image Consortium), a not-for-profit association of institutions with collections of art, that have come together to enable educational use of the digital documentation of their collections. Together, AMICO members are building a joint digital library that is available to universities and colleges, public libraries, and kindergarten through 12th-grade schools. The selection of images from such a large database, and the number of full-text documents found on that organization's Web site at http://www.amico.org/docs.html#Articles (which includes articles and PowerPoint presentation slides on various projects developed by member institutions) may prove more efficient at large institutions where art images are widely used. Cost may, however, be prohibitive for smaller institutions: annual fees range from $2,000 to $5,000.

G. Arthur Mihram is an author and consultant, Princeton, New Jersey.