ALT CoOL SIG Annual Report 2024

Co-Chair’s Welcome and Update

Welcome to the fourth annual report of the Copyright and Online Learning (CoOL) SIG of the Association of Learning Technology. The CoOL SIG was formed in November 2020 and this report covers the period January to December 2024. We are honoured to continue to act as the co-chairs for this group and the report outlines the achievements of the community over the last 12 months. While the CoOL SIG’s activities have centred on our Copyright and Online Learning webinars we have also worked on other projects and initiatives outlined in more detail below. Things were a bit more low key this year as a result of Chris taking some leave for family reasons, but when we looked back at the end of the year in fact we found quite a lot had happened.

We have continued to see an interest in copyright and online learning at many educational institutions. This year we’ve also seen a continuing interest in copyright and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and ran several more webinars on this topic. We were also pleased to run Icepops in collaboration with Leeds Beckett University, this time as a shorter half day event we called a ‘Pocket Edition’. We were grateful to Liesl Rowe at Leeds Beckett for helping to make it all happen, and Anne-Lise Harding, co-chair of ILG who stepped in to co-chair this event in Chris’s absence.

We were delighted to be re-elected for a second 3-year term as co-chairs. We are also really pleased to welcome several new people onto the committee, as well as saying goodbye to some long standing friends who stepped down. The full committee list appears at the end of this report.

Chris Morrison and Jane Secker ALT CoOL SIG Co-chairs 

Overview of activities 2024

During 2024 the group committee continued to meet regularly (see Appendix 1 for members) and held 3 meetings (March, July and December), including an AGM in July at Icepops 2024 in Leeds. We highlighted several areas of activity for the group and have working groups to coordinate our activities in the following areas:

• Accessibility and copyright – the group continued to meet and keep a watching brief on this topic 
• Copyright education and training resources – In 2024 this group started work on creating a list of copyright good practice they are calling the Copyright Wheel. This work is still ongoing but was presented at Icepops 2024.
• The ALT Ethical framework which was launched in 2021. We maintain a small working group keeping a watching brief on this and feeding into the developments. We ran a webinar on this topic in early 2024 with Natalie Lafferty and Sharon Flynn to explore the overlap between copyright and wider ethical issues.

Report on events

Copyright and Online Learning Webinars

• Our webinars continue to be hosted on the ALT YouTube Channel and our website. 
• Number of webinars: 73 in total since March 2020 including 7 webinars held in 2024
• Topics covered included: The ALT ethical framework and copyright, becoming a copyright specialist, third party copyright in research outputs, an introduction to LACA and Highlights of Icepops. In addition we ended the year with our popular Christmas quiz.  

Icepops 2024

The Icepops conference ran at Leeds Beckett University on 8th September 2024 with the theme of ‘Copyright and the Human Being’. The keynote was given by Kyle K Courtney from Harvard University. The presentations and further details are available on the Icepops 2024 website. Over 60 people attended the event and feedback was highly positive. A review of Icepops was written by first time attendees from the University of Dundee, Michael Duncan, Bridget McCall and Kirsty Knowles.

Icepops was supported by the CILIP Information Literacy Group. Tours of Leeds University Library were held on 9th September 2024 and we ran an AGM for the ALT CoOL SIG. Icepops raised a small profit for the CILIP Information Literacy Group who underwrite and support the event, but the costs this year were deliberately kept very low to allow as many delegates as possible to attend.

Fair Dealing week 2024

Our group did not run an event for fair dealing week in 2024 but promoted the events running elsewhere.

Other conferences 

Jane and Chris presented about Copyright and Online Learning and the work of the SIG at a number of external conferences including the following events in 2024: 

• February 2024: ABC Copyright Conference, Canada presenting on Copyright Anxiety in UK and Canadian Higher Education
• February 2024: Research Support Games Event presenting on the Publishing Trap v.2.1
• April 2024: Copyright Essentials for Learning Technologists, ALT CPD webinar
• May 2024: Bodleian Library Staff Development Conference: Ethical and Legal Considerations of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education

Social Media and Communications 

Following ALT’s decision to leave Twitter, we decided to stop using our Twitter account and set up an ALT CoOL SIG BlueSky account in late 2024 which we are still exploring.

Our JISCmail list which is used to circulate our monthly newsletter on now has 226 members and is used for all group communication. 

We also continue to use LIS-Copyseek (a closed list with over 660 members) to promote our events and also the Copyrightliteracy.org website. The CoOL SIG has a logo, and t-shirts are available to purchase in the ALT Store. 

Collaboration and networking

The group recognises there are many existing groups in the copyright space and so has tried to work in collaboration with as many of these as possible. The organisations include:

• Scottish Confederation of University & Research Libraries (SCURL) – several committee members are also members of the SCURL Copyright and Legal Matters group 
• LACA (Libraries and Archives Coalition) – Chris Morrison is a member of this group and keeps them up to date with ALT CoOL SIG activities.
• Universities UK Copyright Negotiation and Advisory Committee – both Jane and Chris are members of this committee, as is Kate Vasili.
• IFLA – during 2023 an excellent working relationship developed with Matt Voigts the former IFLA Copyright Policy Specialist who runs a Copyright News newsletter. We continue to liaise with IFLA through Stephen Wyber. 

Appendix 1: Committee members

Co-Chairs: Jane Secker (City, University of London) and Chris Morrison (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford)

Secretary: Kathryn Drumm, (City, University of London)

Marketing and communications officer: Deborah Ferns (University of Strathclyde) and Hannah Crago (University of Essex)

International networking: Kyle Courtney (Harvard University),

Other Officers: Chris Jones (University of Reading), Kate Vasili (Middlesex University), Neil Sprunt (University of Manchester), Erica Wine (Coventry University), Caroline Lloyd (University of Nottingham) Shazia Arif (Brunel, University of London), Bart Meletti (Learning on Screen / University of Glasgow). Neil McCormick (University of Edinburgh) Megan Kilvington, (York St Johns University), Liesl Rowe (Leeds Beckett University). Keziah Gibbs (University of Essex) Nikisha Stanton (Defence Academy)