1. Publish or Protect? Public Interest Considerations in the Management of Intellectual Property in Education, Training and Research

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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)

13. 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 publisher Little or no distribution to author Note that this is not a commercialisation or income generation process. It is a fee for service process

14. 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 publisher Little 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

15. 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

16. 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)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 )http://www.arrow.edu.auhttp://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 )http://backingaus.innovation.gov.au/2004/research/qual _pub_res.htm

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. Print vs On line Buy once Look at free Create a transaction record every time you look at an object

21. 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

22. 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

23. 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)

24. 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

25. 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

26. Thank you