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Publish or Protect?
Public Interest Considerations in the Management of Intellectual Property in Education, Training
and Research
Content of presentation
The presentation will set out the perspectives of an Australian Government education department on Intellectual Property protection and dissemination
It will begin by dealing with overall Government policy on commercialisation of publicly funded IP and will attempt to dispel some misconceptions about that policy
It will then set out an analysis of issues surrounding dissemination of research information and current impediments to cost effective access to scholarly
information It will conclude by looking at some implications of current
copyright approaches for effective use of on line technology for education
Why is the Department of Education Science and Training interested? Governments are the major funders of schools and
vocational education and training The Australian Government is the major funder of higher
education The Australian Government is the major funder of
research in universities and research agencies The results of that funding are, in many cases, the
production of intellectual property (from lesson plans to learned articles)
DEST therefore is interested to know how the management of IP generated through DEST funding can help or hinder its fundamental purpose of getting good education, training and research outcomes in Australia
Intellectual Property incentives
Creation of IP in the form of an idea
Protection and exploitation of the IP via licensing, patenting, spin off company or other means
Generation of profits from commercialisation
Payments to creator of IP, giving
an incentive to create more IP
Standard assumptions about commercialisation of research It is all about patents, licenses and spin offs The key is to tie up IP and protect it so that it can
form the basis of licence income or spin off company revenue
Dissemination of information about research outcomes in inimical to commercialisation
Government puts a higher priority on ‘commercialisation’ of research than dissemination of research results
This is looking at commercialisation as being largely about how originators of IP secure a share of any revenue generated
Actual commercialisation processes Network (diffusion) processes
Education Extension Publication, communication
Market (technology transfer) processes Transfer of knowledge as an intellectual property right (IPR) as a
result of ownership of the IP generated through conduct of research – a knowledge product
Sale of research services – project research, consultancy Sale of teaching services – professional development, industry
accredited courses Relationship (organisation) processes
Research institutes and centres supported by industry and government
How does value accrue?
In the vast majority of cases, value from education and research accrues through the effective dissemination of the results of research, leading to advancement of understanding and societal/industry uptake of results
The economic value flowing from research into the information technology has accrued largely via the transformational effects which IT has had on production processes and service delivery throughout the economy
Even where the issue is the extent to which universities themselves benefit financially from research, income from consultancies and research based teaching far exceeds revenue from ‘traditional’ commercialisation
Implications for policy
Even allowing for the complexity of dissemination mechanisms, it is axiomatic that information which is not accessible will not easily have a positive impact on anything
Government, therefore, has an interest in facilitating the effective dissemination of knowledge, both in the broad and the particular and in removing barriers to effective dissemination
The overall policy imperative flowing from an interest in maximising the economic impact of research is for Governments to facilitate effective dissemination of research and ensure wide take up in the economy and society more generally
It is all about balance
Government policy is not ‘commercialise everything’ We are interested in how IP can produce value for
Australian industry and society and appropriate commercialisation as part of that process
We do emphasise the need for focus and clarity good, efficient processes to identify what IP should be put
into commercialisation paths clear principles to base decisions on
Lack of clarity/lack of decisions can impede the delivery of value from the great majority of IP which ‘simply’ needs to be disseminated
Where is the money coming from?
The issues associated with managing IP to commercialise research have much in common with normal private sector commercial activities and interest in managing IP
There is Government money involved but the issue is how to maximise economic activity and financial returns all around ie it is about normal market issues
Would now like to turn to quite different situations where we are largely talking about closed money circles the issues are not so much market issues as cost effectiveness
of services
Access to scholarly publications
A major recent topic of debate is access to scholarly publications
The current commercial publishing arrangements are centuries old
They meet some of the cost of operating peer review mechanisms and all of the cost of ‘publication’ by way of after-the-event access charges rather than up front charges
Not surprisingly they function as an offshoot of normal commercial publishing arrangements
The publication process
Creation of IP in the form of a novel
Cost of publication met by publisher at no cost to author (may pay author an advance)
Public pays for access to IP by buying the book
Revenue generated pays publishers costs
Royalties paid to author (incentive to write another novel)
The serials process
Creation of IP in the form of an article
Cost of publication, including peer review met by publisher at no cost to author (or payment to reviewer)
Library pays for hard copy or database access
Higher education sector funds (Government, fees etc)
Revenue is retained by the publisherLittle or no distribution to author
Note that this is not a commercialisation or income generation process. It is a fee for service process
The oligopoly serials process
Creation of IP in the form of an article
Cost of publication, including peer review met by publisher at no cost to author (or payment to reviewer)
Article placed in database and access sold to database as a whole
Higher education sector funds (Government, fees etc)
Revenue is retained by the publisherLittle or no distribution to author
Library pays for database access
This could possibly be considered reverse commercialisation whereby the value of publicly funded IP becomes a private asset to be resold to Government
Government interest
Government is not interested in paying more than is appropriate for any particular service
At the same time we are conscious that the current arrangements have been in place for a long time and operate around the world
We understand that crucial elements of the system must be preserved particularly peer review and quality control in general
What is DEST doing? We are actively supporting both investigation of the
issues and the development of possible alternative approaches to scholarly publications
As an example of the first activity, we supported a forum on Changing Research Practices in the Digital Information and Communication Environment (http://www.humanities.org.au/NSCF/current.htm)
We are funding projects exploring the creation of institutional repositories for scholarly communications (http://www.arrow.edu.au and http://www.apsr.edu.au )
We are also interested in exploring possible changes to academic reward structures as part of development of Quality and Accessibility Frameworks for Australian research (http://backingaus.innovation.gov.au/2004/research/qual_pub_res.htm )
Copyright and on line learning
Key members of the education and training sector regard copyright as a major inhibiting factor in the use of on line services as an educational tool
The following slides suggest at least some of the reasons why this is so and offer at least one way in which
Governments can reduce the problem
How hard copy textbooks work
Creation of IP in the form of a textbook
Cost of publication met by publisher at no cost to author
School pays for access to IP by buying the textbook
Revenue generated pays publishers costs
Royalties paid to author (incentive to write another textbook)
Teacher takes a photocopy of part and distributes to class
Copying picked up in Copyright Agency Ltd Survey
CAL makes a payment to the author
Copyright of on line materials
In hard copy the principal distribution act is the first purchase
With on-line materials it is all about copying in order to use on line materials you have to
communicate them In the hard copy world copyright is largely the
problem of ‘other people’ On line, individual teachers can become
‘publishers’ without even realising it
Print vs On line
Buy once
Look at free
Create a transaction
record every time you look at an object
Consequences
Copyright uncertainty is already a major inhibitor to the creative use of on line learning It is simply impossible for a teacher to know how to
navigate the complexities of copyright law Cost uncertainty is a major concern for
administrators A model based on charging for amount of
‘copying’ is a recipe for open ended costs in an on line environment
Whose material is it anyway?
Most material used in on line teaching, including in universities, is produced by players within education and government or quasi government systems
It consists of public web site material (eg museum sites), learning objects developed by education systems and objects created by teaching staff
It is not clear that there is value in using the traditional payment model for this makes much sense
Learning objects
Creation of a learning object
Cost of creating object is met by the commissioning agency
Access to object provided free to members of a system
Access provided at a cost to those outside the system
Objects are copied
CAL collects revenue for copying and remits to the originating agency (less overhead)
DEST’s view
Australian education, training and research should be regarded as a system
In principle, material produced using DEST funds should be available without cost to education, science and training users
We would encourage other members of the education, training and research system to take a similar view for ‘bespoke’ materials
We consider that the creation of a large body of material which could be used for education, training and research purposes without ongoing use charges would be very desirable And that there need to be simplified procedures (standard
licenses) to facilitate this
What about commercial products?
In the end on line education will only succeed if there is a commercial incentive to produce products for sale into the education market
However potential suppliers may want to reflect what kind of model education buyers are likely to find attractive
Unknown costs and uncertain ability to use products may not be the best marketing approach
Thank you