Teaching Copyright Law through Participatory Involvement in an Unconference Setting

An “unconference” is an attempt by librarians and other professionals to work outside of the traditional conference model. Presenters are encouraged to break out of traditional modes of presentation and try new methods of engaging with the participants. We submitted an idea for a session focused on demystifying domestic and international copyright law and discussing how the law affects libraries and archives. Modern librarianship demands at least a basic understanding of copyright and intellectual property issues, and librarians have reported that they lack training and knowledge in this area. We determined that we did not want to present a formal lecture on copyright in libraries, especially given the freedom and intellectual experimentation encouraged by an unconference setting. Instead, we determined that the best way to present copyright principles would be to share examples of real-life scenarios with the participants and assist them in applying the principles of copyright law to those situations. We hoped that participants would build confidence in their ability to respond when copyright issues arose at the workplace. This paper outlines the approach we took to prepare and present this unconventional session, and it includes an assessment of the results.

In the Beginning

I was formally introduced to the noble gases in high school chemistry class, but they were a boring lot and we mostly ignored them. I don’t remember them even being mentioned during college or graduate school. My real affair began in the fall of 1958 at the Brookhaven National Laboratory. I had taken a postdoctoral appointment there to work with one of the foremost nuclear chemists in the country. In 1958 there was Glenn Seaborg in California, Nate Sugarman at the University of Chicago, and Gert Friedlander at Brookhaven. I had finished my PhD work on nuclear reactions at Oak Ridge, and applied to both Chicago and Brookhaven—California was just too far away—with Brookhaven as my clear favorite: it had the world’s biggest atom smasher, the Cosmotron, with 3 Bev of energy, while Chicago had only a few-hundred-Mev machine. So in the spring of 1958 I set off on my first interview trip, hitting Brookhaven first. One of the staff scientists took me around the lab, introducing me to the others. Whenever someone tried to ask me about my research, he shut them off, which I thought strange. And then at eleven o’clock we walked through a door and suddenly there was a room filled with the entire chemistry department looking at me, and my host stopped at the lectern just long enough to say, “Our speaker today is David Fisher, who will tell us about his work on the nuclear reactions induced by nitrogen on sulphur.” Everyone clapped politely, my host sat down, and I stood there like an idiot. I hadn’t had any idea I’d be expected to give a formal lecture to the greatest scientists I had ever met. I hadn’t prepared anything. I quickly considered my options. I could turn and flee through the door I had entered. I could drop dead. I could— There wasn’t anything else. Those were my only options. Or, oh yeah, I could begin to talk.

Friedrich Ludwig's ‘Musicology of the Future’: a commentary and translation

Friedrich Ludwig's appointment in medieval music at the University of Straßburg came at a crucial time for German musicology, then a new discipline in a flourishing academic environment. Upon entering his post at Straßburg in the autumn of 1905, Ludwig delivered a formal lecture, here translated, in which he outlined the goals for twentieth-century medieval musicology. While many of these goals, in particular the editing of certain theorists and late medieval repertories, have been achieved, other directions implied in Ludwig's synthetic approach have received less attention. Ludwig's own musicology was a creative combination of forces: on the one hand, a reaction to earlier French scholarship in archaeology and philology; on the other, a borrowing of recent German trends in historiography, philosophy and music. Most notable is the influence of Ranke and Hegel on Ludwig's then new concept of latent rhythm (i.e., ‘modal rhythm’) in medieval music. A century of scholarship later, Ludwig's vision for musicology as an innovative interdisciplinary conjunction has much to teach us.

Teaching Microscopy At Iowa State University

Three rigorous one-semester, graduate-level courses are offered in light microscopy (LM) and scanning (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), primarily for graduate students and staff, and for advanced undergraduate students in the teaching complex of the Bessey Microscopy Facility (BMF). These courses have evolved over the years. They include a variety of techniques and laboratory exercises that prepare a successful student to become an independent researcher in the BMF or elsewhere, and to work with any major professor who may not have expertise in microscopy.Each course consists of: five credits at the 600 level; a limit of 10 students; 11 hours of formal lecture-lab time per week; and additional arranged time for continuation of laboratory procedures and individual operation of microscopes and ancillary equipment. Each student has access to the teaching complex 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Can a Lecture Influence Attitudes to Suicide Prevention?

Attitudes held by various groups of healthcare professionals with regard to suicide prevention were assessed using an attitude inventory before and after they attended a formal lecture. The lecture presented basic facts and statistics, discussed clinical techniques and challenged negative attitudes. Evidence is presented to suggest that a reduction in the proportion of expressed attitudes which were equivocal or negative towards the feasibility of suicide prevention in clinical practice, can be achieved by a lecture of this kind.

Uitdaging vir volwassene didaktiek: Begeleide selfstudie die oplossing?

The current teaching approach in nursing is mainly tutor-centred: during a formal lecture the tutor provides the facts, the student stays a passive listener and has to memorize facts for reproduction during evaluation. In this paper the argument is focused on a student-centred approach that implies selfstudy with accompaniment when needed. The rationale for this approach is to develop a academic-scientific student, as it is impossible to provide all the information to learners in this technological dispensation. The student is expected to remain a lifelong learner ... "A student cannot claim to have been educated successfully at university or college unless he has learned to study independently".

Designing User Interfaces: A Classroom Experience in Iterative Software Design

A program was developed to expose undergraduate Computer Technology students to methods for designing and evaluating user dialogue in interactive software. The class was given an assignment to develop an Interactive program for use by the general public. This was given prior to any experience using concepts in Human Factors, a Standard Development Process, or general guidelines for evaluating the user interface. Task analysis was performed extracting data from video tapes. Formal lecture material on designing user interfaces incorporating good Human Factors was then introduced. Students then were given the opportunity to modify their programs and assess the value of these changes through retesting. Substantial improvements in both transaction performance times and accuracy occurred during the evaluation of the revised applications. This program was an effective method for demonstrating the complexities involved in designing and implementing interactive software.