Conference 'Copyright and Universities: from Principles to Practices'

General information

Report of working conference

Conference Programme

Conference Papers

Presentations

Breakout sessions

Participants

Conference Organisation

General information

The goal of the 2nd conference, on 6 and 7 December, was to discuss a set of principles, and to develop guidelines, for institutional copyright policies and agreements with publishers. Proposals had been formulated by the Steering Committee on the basis of the outcome of the workshops of the Zwolle conference in June 2001. The Steering Committee worked with representatives of academic authors, institutions, publishers and libraries to consider balanced approaches to the management of rights to achieve maximum access to information.
Conference chair was Dr. Sijbolt Noorda, vice-chairman of the SURF Foundation, and President of the Universiteit van Amsterdam.
Participants, invited on a personal basis, were international stakeholders in this field.
Conference discussion papers are published on this website.

The Zwolle approach: balancing stakeholders’ interests in scholarship-friendly copyright practices

Report of working conference on Copyright and Universities: from Principles to Practices, Zwolle 6 and 7 December 2002

‘Principles help direct the change in scholarly communication’, ‘An approach worthwhile and promising’: statements that were heard after the two-day international conference in Zwolle on copyright and universities. The approach taken by this second Zwolle conference did not differ from that of its predecessor in June 2001, as again the starting point was how to engage all the parties involved and how to get areas of tension out of the way. That we managed to do this became apparent on Saturday 7 December 2002 when the participants in the working conference ‘Copyright and Universities: from Principles to Practices’ toasted a successful outcome.
For two days participants from the US, the UK, Australia, Spain, the Czech Republic, Belgium, Norway, Germany and the Netherlands spoke about optimising access to scholarly information. Those taking part in the conference were not only universities and their managements and policymakers but also publishers, librarians and authors and their representatives. The aim of the conference was to reach agreement on the Zwolle Principles, to identify future initiatives and to promote the implementation of copyright policy within universities. The conference was chaired by Dr Sijbolt Noorda, vice-chairman of the SURF Foundation and President of the ‘Universiteit van Amsterdam’.

The topics covered by the conference were: the Zwolle Principles, copyright policies for universities and issues for agreements with publishers. A speaker introduced each topic and was followed by a discussion between the participants in a break-out session, with plenary feedback after each session.

Principles for scholarship friendly copyright practices
The first speaker was Dr Kenneth D. Crews, Director of the Copyright Management Center at Indiana University, USA and a member of the Steering Committee. Dr Crews outlined the background to the second Zwolle conference and how it had come into being; in doing so he went into the Steering Committee’s role in the preparation of the documents for this conference. First of all he emphasised the importance of the conference, stating that this conference stood out from others in this field because of the diversity of its participants, its international perspective and its emphasis on collaboration between the various stakeholders.
After this general introduction Kenny Crews elucidated the Zwolle Principles in detail. He stressed Principle 4, which states that the allocation of rights is the starting point and in that context one must not home in on copyright, but on the question of which rights are important to which parties. As stated in the first Principle, the various interests of the parties must be weighed up.

Breakout session on Principles
In the break-out session on the Principles the question put to the participants was whether the Steering Committee had described the problem and the solution correctly. The participants were also asked whether they were able to support the Principles.
The feedback session showed that in general the problem – improving access to scholarly information – had been described well. Another aspect which emerged was that the Principles, though of a high level of abstraction, were acceptable to the participants provided a number of additions and textual changes were made. These changes concerned, among other things, additional explanation of the context of the Principles and the long-term preservation of information.

University Copyright Policy
The session on Copyright Policies for Universities was introduced by Dr Ann Monotti, senior lecturer at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. After Dr Monotti had outlined the interaction of forces surrounding academic authors, she went into the significance of copyright policies. She noted that they could provide clarification for the problem of the ownership of the rights and the balance of rights between university and author, emphasising that these copyright policies could not control the agreements with the publishers. Her own research at Monash University had shown that academic staff attached importance to the right to publish, the right to recognition, personal financial reward and the right to make changes, and that these rights ought certainly to be regulated in a copyright policy. Taking two hypothetical situations as her starting point, Ann Monotti also outlined the outcomes for ownership under different policies applied by certain universities. She ended with the statement that many models were possible but that a crucial aspect of them was ownership. One also needed to be clear about which rights were enjoyed by whom, with the associated question of whether these rights could be identified. Lastly she wondered whether it was possible to identify models which gave maximum access to scholarly information.

Breakout session on Policies
In the break-out session participants discussed the document produced by the Steering Committee, ‘Outline for Issues for University Policies'. This included a list of possible topics to be covered in a copyright policy. From the break-out session it emerged that greater emphasis could be given to certain parts of the outline; for example, the ‘dispute resolution’ and the ‘enforcement and implementation’ needed to be made clearer. What also came out from the session was that the ethos of an institution needed to be very clear before its copyright policy could be fleshed out.

It turned out that the participants found the issues for copyright policies a handy tool for use as a checklist. The general perception was that there was a need to come up with examples of ‘Good Practices’ so that policymakers could reach for them if they were engaged on drawing up a copyright policy. It was also a useful tool for countries in central Europe which have little or no expertise or experience in this field. A detailed description of the context and how the document can be used in formulating a copyright policy ought then to be added for institutions.

Copyright Agreements with Publishers
Martin Blume, chief editor of the American Physical Society, introduced Saturday morning’s discussion of Issues for Agreements with Publishers. His most important message was that it can be necessary for publishers to arrange for copyrights to scholarly articles to be transferred, with the publisher in turn giving rights back to the author. Martin Blume’s presentation made an important contribution to reciprocal understanding between the different stakeholders.

Breakout session on Agreements
For the purposes of the agreements with publishers an analysis had been made of the interests of the parties concerned. This analysis was discussed in the break-out session, and important additions were suggested. As for the policies, so too for the agreements examples of ‘Good Practices’ were needed. It was also emphasised that extra attention needs to be paid to the big differences between the disciplines.

Conclusion
During the last afternoon of the conference the participants concluded that it had been very meaningful and that a follow-up was desirable. They indicated that they were prepared to publicise the Principles within their organisations and provide feedback on their experiences of doing this.
They raised the point that in the follow-up stage attention would need to be devoted to identifying and presenting examples of Good Practices of both copyright policies of universities and agreements with publishers. It was also recognised that it is of very great importance to develop policy to raise awareness among the authors of scholarly information. Help in doing this was promised by representatives of authors’ organisations. The participants also considered it desirable that in the follow-up stage the subject of the business analysis should be raised, with attention paid to the changing roles and positions of the different stakeholders and possible alternative business models. Another conclusion concerned contributing to other gatherings, such as for example in central Europe, on this subject. Participants also agreed that it was desirable to seek funding to facilitate this follow-up. Examples were put forward and suggestions made of possible bodies which might provide money. The participants also commented that the website http://www.surf.nl/copyright was perceived to be a good and informative facility; in that context they were also aware that we live in a dynamic environment and that the site is ‘work in progress’; consequently it would need to be modified and expanded regularly.

Zwolle III
Finally, as the conference closed, it was evident that the first Zwolle conference in June 2001 had provided an insight into the issues that play a part in improving scholarly communication and access to it. That conference identified the issues and methods that needed to be worked out in detail. This second Zwolle conference has now built a bridge between thinking and doing, by formulating Principles and putting them into concrete terms. Zwolle III, anticipated for late-2003, will need to concentrate on practices and ‘how to make it work’, all this with the aim of assisting stakeholders to achieve maximum access to scholarship without compromising quality or academic freedom.

See also our Press Release

Conference Programme

Friday December 6

11.30: Registration + Lunch

13.00: Welcome and Opening by Sijbolt Noorda, chair of the conference, vice-president SURF Foundation, president Universiteit van Amsterdam

13.15: Principles for scholarship friendly copyright practices - introduction by Kenny Crews, Professor, Indiana University School of Law, USA

13.50: Breakout session on Principles in three groups

15.30: Tea

16.00: Feedback to plenary

16.30: University Copyright Policy - introduction by Ann Monotti, Senior Lecturer, Monash University, Australia

16.50: Breakout session on Policies in three groups

18.00: Time to freshen up

18.45: Pre-dinner drinks

19.30: Dinner

Saturday December 7

9.00: Feedback to plenary of discussions on Policies

9.30: Copyright Agreements with Publishers - introduction by Martin Blume, Editor-in-Chief, the American Physical Society, USA

9.50: Breakout session on Agreements in three groups

11.00: Coffee

11.30: Feedback to plenary

12.00: Lunch

13.15: Agreement on Principles

14.00: Follow-up

15.30: Conclusion

16.00: Drinks

Conference chair:
Sijbolt Noorda

Chairs breakout sessions: Teresa Hackett (EBLIDA), Rachel Vance (Australian National University) and Leo Voogt (Elsevier Science)

Rapporteurs breakout sessions: Chris Bailey, Sally Morris and Fred Friend (all Steering Committee)

Conference Papers

Conference discussion papers were the Draft Principles and the Stakeholder's interests, Issues for University Policies and Issues for Agreements:

1. Principles

2. Policies

3. Agreements

Presentations

Prof Kenneth D. Crews on Copyright Management for Scholarship and Principles
Dr. Ann Monotti on University Copyright Policies
Dr. Martin Blume on 'Who should Own Scientific Papers?'

Breakout sessions

Discussions in the breakout sessions centred around three sets of questions on the issues involved.

Participants

Conference participants came from Australia, Belgium, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. Click here for a list.


Foto: Henk Boeree

Conference organisation

SURF foundation
Information: Ms. Linda Hofman and Ms. Marieke Kramer
P.O. Box 2290
3500 GG Utrecht
The Netherlands
Tel: +31-30-2346600
Fax: +31-30-2332960
Email: copyright@surf.nl

The conference was held in the town of Zwolle, the Netherlands.