Here’s a slidecast of my recent lecture at Aalto university‘s Media Lab, which discussed copyright, creative commons and remixing. The audio track is some 50 minutes long, but the actual lecture is only about 30 minutes – there’s 20 minutes of follow-up discussions at the end.
What’s happening to copyright
View more presentations from Tarmo Toikkanen.
Someone told me that the book Oppetaja tekijänoikeuden verkossa states that Moodle courses for students constructed by teachers are not open for others (not students) to observe? By this I mean a teacher can say no if someone asks to look at the Moodle course other than Head of department of head of degree programme.
I’d love to know what the answer is. As a British guy who has taught for the Open University I am used to the phrases ‘quality assurance’ and teacher accountability. I do know that here in HAMK some courses in Moodle for English degree programmes are of poor quality in terms of instructions and feedback.
I guess my basic question is how can teachers be accountable for the quality of teaching in the online classroom if they cannot be observed, and contrary to this the face-to-face classroom is open to all.
Thank you
Brian Joyce
Hi! Thanks for the question. Online course environments that aren’t fully public cannot be opened at will. For one, students may have produced works for which they own the copyright, and no-one else can decide to publish them. This also includes showing the contents of the course area to outsiders. Now, for accountability, I don’t think teachers can really refuse to allow their superiors access to the course, but just granting access to a parent or someone completely unrelated does not seem like the appropriate thing to do.
I should also point out that a normal classroom is not open to all. A university lecture is a public venue, but classroom education in primary and secondary education is open for the students and the teachers only. Now a parent or a supervisor may want to enter the room to see what’s going on, but usually the teacher is first asked about it – and usually the permission is given. It just would not make sense to allow any passers-by to come into a school and spend time in a classroom, as it would disrupt the education.