Working Groups

Session 1

UNIVERSITY Agenda for Fair Use

The Center for Social Media at American University and documentary filmmakers wrote a report on Best Practices in Fair Use to help navigate the waters of copyrighted materials and to determine when material use can be considered Fair Use. Much like documentarians, members of University communities are often riddled with questions as they create and express their work. How can we create Best Practices in Fair Use document for Universities similar to the one created for documentary filmmakers?

Facilitators

• Lewis Hyde, Berkman Center for Internet & Society Fellow
• Patricia Aufderheide, Director, Center for Social Media, American University
• Eric Gordon, Assistant Professor of New Media, Emerson College

Participants

Questions from the website / Starting Points for Discussion

• Is fair use merely a stepchild of the proprietary?

Alternative UNIVERSITY Models for Scholarly Publications

The ways in which professors, academics and students and professionals release their work into the world are changing. The old models of scholarly publishing, in which most work is turned over to a publishing company just to be purchased back by the Universities from which it originated, are challenged as the printing press is replaced by digital distribution. How can Universities progress open access models of scholarly publications through repositories, modes of licensing and support of open access journals?

Facilitators

• Stuart Shieber, Welch Professor of Computer Science, Harvard University
• Peter Suber, Open Access Project Director at Public Knowledge, Earlham College Professor

Participants

Questions from the website / Starting Points for Discussion

Progressing UNIVERSITY General Counsels on Intellectual Property Issues

How are General Counsels at Universities advancing academia into the digitized age and how, as lawyers for Universities, do they view intellectual property issues? In what ways do Universities and their General Counsels need to be on the cutting edge of shared resource and knowledge promotion? How does this counter the position to keep Universities from being sued?

Facilitators

• Professor Terry Fisher, Harvard Law School Professor, Berkman Center Director

Participants

Questions from the website / Starting Points for Discussion

• How are universities similar to and different from for-profit businesses and what are the implications for their rights as owners and users of intellectual property?
• How is intellectual property defined?

Connecting UNIVERSITY and Localized Curricula

What is University's role in guiding elementary education? Through empowering and enabling local teachers and volunteers throughout the world through collaborative development of teaching materials with luminaries in various academic disciplines, we can connect University to all children in the world, offering children who may not necessarily have access to traditional systems that lead them to University the chance to connect nonetheless. With a project such as One Laptop per Child, and its initiative to facilitate a universal library, University can connect in more direct and actionable ways to the basic education movement, and address the needs of local students and teachers across different cultures.

Facilitators

• SJ Klein, Director of Content, One Laptop Per Child
• Ethan Zuckerman, Berkman Center for Internet & Society Fellow, Co-Founder Global Voices\
• Harvard PITF Program

Participants

Questions from the website / Starting Points for Discussion

• How can we make Harvard's course material available to the world, not just those chosen few who can attend in person? How can we harness technology and make distance-learning a richer experience for distance-learners and enrolled students?

The Digital Identity of UNIVERSITY

With digital tools such as message boards, social networks, and search engines making University and its clients’ identities more public than ever, navigating the integrated media landscape for students and other members of University has become increasingly difficult. In a world where anonymous postings can have lasting effects on the professional and personal lives of students, and when University clients and their digital identities can be expressions of the University as a whole, this workshop will focus on how we begin to navigate this space and how we form the digital identity of University.

Facilitators

• John Clippinger, Berkman Center for Internet & Society Fellow
• Chris Kelly, Vice President of Corporate Development, Facebook

Participants

Questions from the website / Starting Points for Discussion

Session 2

UNIVERSITY and the RIAA

Suits brought against members of University by the RIAA bring up issues revolving around the role and identity of University and copyright. Universities are being asked to absorb financial and non-monetary costs of the record companies' enforcement. Is this enforcement also compromising student privacy? Does this limit access to genuine educational resources? How do we provide opportunities for new creative expression through digital mediums?

Facilitators

• Wendy Seltzer, Berkman Center for Internet & Society Fellow

Participants

Questions from the website / Starting Points for Discussion

Open Access at UNIVERSITY – OpenCourseWare and Beyond

MIT’s OpenCourseWare, along with numerous other University-lead open access learning initiatives, has revealed the world’s thirst for open access knowledge and learning. What have we learned from previous efforts, and how and in what ways can Universities harness the potential of making their course material open access? How do we give knowledge, once put online, a sense of “life” – how do we make it “living” knowledge to be shared and developed with learners around the world?

Facilitators

• Anne Margulies, Executive Director, MIT OpenCourseWare
• Marshall Smith, Director, Education, Hewlett Foundation
• Elizabeth Stark, Founder Harvard Free Culture Club, Harvard Law School 3L
• Joel Thierstein, Executive Director, Rice University Connexions

Participants

Questions from the website / Starting Points for Discussion

• How do we create open access journals that are fiscally sustainable?
• Do extension schools dilute the brand of a university?
• Should that even matter?
• If successful, will anyone take the degrees seriously?
• Will normal graduates resent extension students?
• What are the financial and the business models for making a vision of openness possible and sustainable?
• Will becoming more open threaten the standing of the University (as the traditional view would hold) or would it enhance it?
• In what way does Harvard University's concept of openness resonate with the ideas of justice and morality?
• What role will (and what role should) the libraries and museums play in defining how open our universities should be?
• How do we fund research to maximize openness, but still make it possible for interested corporations and governments to participate?
• How do we maintain and guarantee the quality of information as openness increases?
• If you were to create a trustworthy "open" organization (or an organization to which you entreat openness) what would this type of organization look like?
• How should we define openness, particularly in opposition to some concept or definition of closed?
• It is fine and good for Harvard, a multi-billion dollar organization, to advance this vision of openness. But what about the small firms?
• How open or closed should Harvard university be? What is the most interesting issue in relation to this?
• What role do OpenCourseWare systems play in this endeavor to harness the Internet as an open facilitator and distributor of University knowledge?
• What do you feel about openness in classrooms in the for-profit center and impact of this on government and academic arenas? Who should be responsible for the openness of the net?
• Will Harvard consciously and productively define its future position on 'openness' or be dragged there by the rest of the world?
• How does the university's budget allocation and procurement process create incentives for greater openness?
• How do you balance benefits and rights of enrolled/paying students and 'open' university participants?

UNIVERSITY Relationship Building – Power, Funding and Transparency - Who’s the Authority, Anyway?

The relationships between University and business, philanthropy, government and other funding sources grow increasingly complex as all these entities enter into relationships that are meant to fund knowledge creation. As each party in University relationships has their own goals, what steps need to be taken to build more fruitful bonds? How do the relationships change as the mode of knowledge dissemination leans toward open access models? How is funding negotiated, and how can the integrity of the produced work be maintained? How will UNIVERSITY help fund and construct its and our open domain? The working group will discuss the creation of a set of norms that will balance the interests across the range of disciplines at University.

Facilitators

• John Wilbanks, Executive Director, Science Commons

Participants

Questions from the website / Starting Points for Discussion

• How will UNIVERSITY help fund and construct its and our open domain?
• How does the internet change models of authority (social, intellectual, hierarchical)? What does this mean for Harvard, the most "authoritative" -- because best known? -- univesity in the world.

Social and Cultural UNIVERSITY Communities Online and Off

How can University sponsored events leverage their reach, build communities and keep the conversations going after the conference ends? Using as a case study the Dred Scott conference held by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice in April, we will discuss how history relates to the present and future. We will consider how the internet and new technologies can help universities as they work to convene social and cultural gatherings (as opposed to purely academic).

Facilitators

• David Harris, Managing Director, Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice

Participants

Questions from the website / Starting Points for Discussion

UNIVERSITY and its Library

Facilitators

• David Weinberger, Berkman Center for Internet & Society Fellow
• jessamyn c. west, Rural Librarian

Participants

Questions from the website / Starting Points for Discussion