Hello and welcome to the first post of the University of Kent copyright literacy blog. The purpose of this blog is to communicate with colleagues (and indeed anyone else who is interested) about improving copyright support and understanding of copyright issues at Kent.
I will be writing more in the coming weeks about our plans to help Kent staff (whether they be teachers, researchers or other professional staff) and students understand copyright and make the right decisions in their work. Before getting into that though I thought it might be nice if I introduced myself and explained why I’ve started this blog.
My name is Chris Morrison and my job title is Copyright and Licensing Compliance Officer. I’m responsible for advising on copyright, managing copyright licences (like the Copyright Licensing Agency HE licence), delivering training and developing institutional policy. Our Comms people recently published a shameless piece of self promotion staff profile on me which explains my background and the approach I’ve been taking so far.
Since joining Kent in 2012 I have been lucky enough to get involved with the hugely supportive UK HE copyright community and have also teamed up with Dr Jane Secker at LSE to do some research into levels of copyright literacy amongst UK library and information professionals. This research has led to many connections with other practitioners and researchers and recently we have written about how an understanding of copyright is an essential part of digital literacy.
I’m committed to using creative ways of approaching copyright education, which can often seem intimidating or dry when taken out of context. My hope is that this blog will be a good way of keeping colleagues updated on progress with the Kent copyright literacy work. This is being initiated by a formal Information Services project (the snappily titled “Embed Copyright Literacy in Information Services (P1465)”), but I’m hoping that starting conversations around this work in an open and collaborative way will help us get to where we want to be more quickly and having enjoyed the journey a bit more.
If you want to get in touch directly please email copyright@kent.ac.uk or find me on Twitter @cbowiemorrison. I look forward to speaking to / hearing from you.