Don’t forget to keep a space in your diaries for Climate Action Week at the end of October!

Working in conjunction with a Canterbury-wide climate action week, organised by Canterbury Climate Action Partnership (CCAP) and involving Canterbury BID, councils and others, we have got a great week planned from Monday 25 – Friday 29 October.

Taking place in the run-up to COP26 (the 26th UN Climate Change Conference), we will be holding a series of events focused on sustainability at Kent and celebrating the launch of the University’s Sustainability Strategy.

To see the plan for the week, please visit our Climate Action Webpage, which we’ll continue to update as content for some of the events is finalised.

Among events taking place are:

Launch of the University of Kent’s Sustainability Strategy – Tuesday 26 October – 12.00-13.00

Introduced by Professor Richard Reece, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience, this free online event will include a presentation given by Catherine Morris, Environmental Adviser, of the four major themes running through the strategy and a panel discussion. Please register in advance – details on how to do so will be updated to the webpage.

COP26@Kent: Co-Create your campus of the future – Thursday 28 October – 12.00-14.00

The Sustainability Team is inviting everyone to take part in a special event hosted in the Gulbenkian to co-create the campus of the future. They’ll be showcasing key areas of sustainability activity at the University and asking students, staff and community members to have their say and share their ideas of how we might transform these areas into truly sustainable and innovative good practice exemplars.

For more details on events taking place from 26-29 October, please visit the Climate Action Week webpage.

Kent Unicorns, a netball team made up of University of Kent staff get ready for their next season in the Thanet District Netball League which starts this month.

Sponsored by Kent Sport, the team are made up of staff from across the university and have been together since 2017.

Following the successful introduction of Netball in the VC Cup, Sport Development introduced netball coaching sessions for staff to help those get ‘Back to Netball’.  As regulars to training, the team took up the opportunity to participate in the local league to improve their practice and gain further match play.  The team have gone from strength to strength.  Friendly games returned this summer to get teams active after months of lockdown.  Their first match of the new season resulted in a win for the Kent Unicorns, and two of its team earning both Best Attack and Best Defence of the match.

Team Captain, Ali Webster (Quality Assurance and Compliance Manager), says ‘the pandemic has presented many challenges for everybody over the last eighteen months, but I’ve been delighted with the team’s resilience and ability to find ways to support each other throughout. We have already started practicing as a team again and I am excited to play netball with this amazing bunch of women during the coming season.’

The team are grateful to Kent Sport for the support and sponsorship they have given the team over the years and look forward to this next season where fingers crossed, they can keep up the good work.

If you are a member of staff interested in playing Netball, come along to ALL Active Social Netball every Monday lunchtime, 12.30 – 13.30 in the Sports Centre.  Kent Sport membership required. Minimum membership £2 per session with pay to play membership.  For more information, please see website or follow @ALLActiveKent on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok for updates.

Welcome to Black History Month 2021!  This October we celebrate Black History, the successes and achievements of Black individuals and offer a critical examination of where we need to do more and be better, both as a University and a society.  

This year’s theme at Kent is Black Excellence, and this is exactly what the month aims to showcase. Black Excellence across a variety of academic and non-academic fields such as Business, Research, Sports, Literature, Media and Culture and celebrates a host of British and international figures.

Led by volunteers from BAME Staff and Student Networks and the Kent Union Representative Officers, this year’s Black History Month features a wide range of events that are sure to capture your interest and attention. They include inspirational speakers, art exhibitions, workshops and training courses, film screenings, a book club and even a reggae night in the Gulbenkian on the Canterbury site. The vast majority of events are free, open to anyone to attend and a lot are online so can be dipped in and out of at your leisure if you are unable to attend on the scheduled time and date or are studying or working at home or at a different site.

You may want to try our recommended reading list, go and see a film in the Gulbenkian, grab a chat and a coffee at Woody’s, listen to Professor Kalwant Bhopal speak on Black Excellence in Higher Education and Scholarship, view the photos from the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, watch some YouTube videos or simply enjoy some food from the Ile Afrik food truck. Whatever you get involved in, make sure you share it with #BHMKent2021

The full programme is available on the Kent Union website

Our programme of activity doesn’t end when Black History Month is over either- keep a look out throughout the academic year for more events and activities on campus to engage with.

We hope you enjoy everything that Black History Month 2021 has to offer.

Article by Chris Morrison | Copyright, Software Licence & IS Policy Manager

Universities are increasingly receiving copyright infringement notifications from photographers and their representatives. This blog post provides advice on how to avoid receiving an unexpected demand for licence fees.

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post on this blog, but that doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a lot of copyright literacy related activity at Kent. One of the most pressing copyright issues that has arisen recently across the education sector is the number of claims received from picture agencies demanding licence fees for the unauthorised use of their clients’ photographs on institutional websites. This includes use of a stringent termination mechanism in the 2.0 version of Creative Commons licences which has caught many people out. This post provides an overview of what can happen when you don’t take care in selecting and posting images online, and what you can do to avoid receiving an infringement notification.

Copyright and photographs online: the basics

As per the updated copyright guidance we published last year, photographs are protected by copyright. This means the copyright owner (usually the photographer themselves, but potentially an employer or a commissioning organisation) has the exclusive right to do or authorise certain activities with their photographs, such as copying them or communicating them to the public. It is only legal to post photographs online if you have the permission of the copyright holder, or if your use is covered by an exception to copyright such as ‘quotation’ or ‘illustration for instruction’. If you use someone else’s photograph without the copyright owner’s permission, and the use is not covered by an exception, then you will have infringed copyright. Infringement of copyright means that both you and the University may be liable in the event of legal action so it’s important to follow a few simple steps to avoid this.

Finding and using licensed content

We all want to find engaging images to use on our blogs and web pages and we have information on finding and sharing content online as well as guidance on how to find and attribute images online. The attribution guidance explains how to use the following types of content:

• Images supplied by staff
• iStockphoto and Getty Images
• Creative Commons
• Public domain and CC zero

One of the key messages here is to always provide a credit to the photographer unless you are certain that no attribution is required. This principle also applies to use of images in teaching where copyright exceptions might apply. For example, the exception covering ‘illustration for instruction‘ only applies if the author or creator of a copyright work is acknowledged unless this is ‘impossible for reasons of practicality or otherwise’. And even in cases where no attribution is required we recommend that you do where possible.

Attribution is also one of the fundamental elements of the Creative Commons licences which allow people to share content freely online. All Wikipedia content is published under a Creative Commons licence as are millions of Flickr photos. It is also the most widely used set of licences for open access publishing.

The issue with Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 licences

We have experienced a number of people getting caught out by photographers using older versions of the Creative Commons Attribution licence which has very strict attribution requirements. As reported in a recent Computer Weekly article some photographers have developed a business model that involves seeding large amounts of Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 licensed images on platforms like Flickr, and then using automated image recognition tools to identify where these are being used without attribution. Older versions of the licence are specifically chosen because, unlike 4.0 version of the licence, they do not have a provision to ‘cure’ any failure to comply with the attribution requirements. The photographer or their agent then contacts the organisation or individual responsible for the website demanding a licence fee payment. The amounts demanded are usually between £600 and £1000 and appear to be calculated to be just low enough to make getting legal representation unaffordable, but high enough to make it worthwhile for an agency to pursue those who have used images without attribution.

I recently organised an event with other copyright specialists in the sector to discuss this issue and we were joined by representatives from Creative Commons. Whilst Creative Commons note that the business model above is not in the spirit of the licensing scheme, they are not able to intervene in disputes between copyright owners and users of their works. They are currently working with their partners and others to create a statement of principles about licensing enforcement to influence community behaviour. They are also working on updated guidance on how to attribute photos appropriately, and I am working with others in the UK HE sector to develop further guidance on the implications of this for online learning.

In the meantime I would advise that you always provide attribution for any images you use online, and be careful when using images licensed with CC BY 1.0, 2.0 or 3.0 licences. And if you are contacted by someone claiming payment for copyright infringement please contact copyright@kent.ac.uk.

Image credit (c) Lake Reflections by Vlad Podvorny CC0

Join us on Friday 1 October 16.00 – 18.00  as we officially launch the brand-new Kent Sports Clinic! We’ll be hosting a networking event with Clinic staff talks and drinks in the Sibson Atrium.

About the clinic:

The Kent Sports Clinic combines the expertise of the Kent Sport Physiotherapy Clinic and the School of Sport and Exercise Science Clinics to create one of the most extensive performance, physiotherapy, and rehabilitation services in Kent.

Don’t forget to sign up to hear the latest news and events happening at the clinic – and as an added bonus for signing up, you’ll also be entered into a prize draw to win some great prizes!

To sign up visit the Kent Sports Clinic website.

We are delighted to welcome Jo Lawton, Interim Head of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion to Kent.

Jo has a background of leading EDI projects and priorities across a number of HE institutions and is joining us from UK Research and Innovation, where she developed the organisation’s EDI workforce strategy.

Jo says, ‘I’m really excited to join Kent at such a critical point in our EDI journey. I’m committed to understanding the great work that is happening across the institution and to identifying opportunities to consolidate and strengthen what we do (and how we do it).

I’m thrilled to be bringing such a talented and passionate EDI team together and to be working with such a broad range of internal experts, committed networks and diverse stakeholders.  Together, I’d like for us to develop an organisational-wide approach to moving our commitments forward, one that is transparent, practical and at the same time aspirational – putting co-creation (between our student and staff communities) at the heart of everything we do.

To ensure our work is relevant and impactful – I’ll be looking to make the most of internal and external learning, expertise and partnerships. Over the next few weeks I’ll be meeting with as many people as I can from across our community to listen, learn and start this process.’

Meet the team who Jo will be working with:

Tanesha Allen – EDI Data Analyst – leading on the design, analysis and reporting of all monitoring data for the use of Kent’s Race Equality Charter application. Tanesha will also provide data analysis and advice to support the wider EDI strategic agenda.

Tanesha Allen

Leroy Cohoone – Race Equality Mark Co-ordinator – leading the operation, planning and delivery of Kent’s Race Equality Charter, Leroy will be co-ordinating across the institution, working closely with the institutional self-assessment team.

Leroy Cohoone

Minna Janhonen – EDI Adviser –  formally the University’s Athena SWAN Adviser, Minna is prioritising Kent’s submission to the Inclusive Employers Standard benchmarking exercise, alongside advising divisions on their submissions to the Athena SWAN Charter.

Minna Janhonen

You may have seen the Student Helpers (with their bright yellow lanyards and enthusiastic smiles!) across campus in the lead-up to, and during, Welcome Week. Well, they are ready and keen to work for you!

The Work-Study Scheme (based in the Careers and Employability Service) have around 150 right-to-work-checked, contracted, trained and ready Student Helpers at your disposal. All you need to do is contact Hannah Greer/Jen Davey on workstudy@kent.ac.uk (or drop us a line on Teams), give us your cost code, and we’ll arrange Student Helpers to work for you. (Student Helpers are paid £9.40/hour or £9.99/hour if they’re aged 25+, and we have some match-funding available to help with costs.)

Student Helpers can be put to work at events, for promotional work, focus groups, or for longer-term opportunities such as social media management or administrative support. We have a bank of job descriptions, and can support you with shortlisting, interviewing, or directly assigning roles.

Natalia Crisanti has hired Communications Interns the for the last 2 years:

‘When Student Services underwent a restructure, we knew we had a big challenge to improve our communications to students. With the help of the Work-Study Scheme, we recruited 5 extremely capable Interns, each working 5-10 hours per week to help manage the social media and web pages.

As a group we were able to meet regularly, flex and cover one another’s work so that deadlines were met, and learned from one another to create engaging content and maximise student participation. I would highly recommend recruiting through the Work-Study Scheme, it had been a fantastic way of having student insight in reaching their peers, excellent digital media knowledge exchanges, and being able to mentor and grow their professional experience so they can graduate from Kent with confidence.’

The next meeting of the University’s Honorary Degrees Committee will take place in November 2021 and we are looking for nominations for the award of honorary degrees for the consideration of the Committee.

Anyone can put forward a nomination and to ensure the award of honorary degrees across a broad range of academic disciplines and subject areas it would be helpful to receive a number from each Division (for example one from each School/Centre). You can find all the necessary information, including the nomination form on the honorary degree nominations webpage. Nominations should be returned by 25 October 2021 by email to councilsec@kent.ac.uk

Public Orator Suggestions

The Committee is also looking for suggestions of Public Orators, if you have any, or indeed if you wish to put yourself forward, please do email councilsec@kent.ac.uk by 25 October 2021 and these will be discussed at the Committee and where appropriate put forward to Senate for approval.  Information about the role can be found on the Honorary Degree Web page .

Professor Rachel McCrea, Professor of Statistics at the School of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science, has been invited to participate in the 4^thWorld Laureate Forum (WLF) as a Young Scientist.

The WLF is the foremost global scientific gathering of prize winners, including laureates of the Nobel Prize, Wolf Prize, Lasker Award, Turing Award, Breakthrough Prize, and Fields Medal as well as hundreds of academicians of the Chinese Academy of Science and Chinese Academy of Engineering and outstanding young scientists worldwide. Professor McCrea was nominated to take part by the Royal Statistical Society.

Professor McCrea will present at the Ecology, Economics and Statistics session alongside Laureates Angus Deaton, (2015 Nobel Prize in Economics), Alessio Figalli (2018 Fields Medal), Simon Levin (2005 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences), and Eric Maskin (2007 Nobel Prize in Economics), as well as fellow Young Scientists Maurizio Porfiri, Mark Christiaan Veraar, and Shuaian Wang.

The WLF runs from Thursday 30 September to Sunday 3 November in Shanghai, with Professor McCrea participating remotely.

Further details about the WLF are available on their website.