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Jessica: All right. I haven't seen anyone join the waiting room for a couple of minutes, so I think we're going to go ahead and get started. Hello everyone, and welcome to today's session of the Open Education Networks Pub101. Thank you for joining us. My name is Jessica McLean. I'm the director of OER at the University of Texas at Arlington, and I'll be your host and facilitator today. I apologize for not being on camera. I'm having some computer troubles today. So soon, I'll be handing off the presentation to Carla Myers from the Miami University Libraries to talk about MOUs. And as always, we'll have time for your questions and conversation. We invite you to share your experiences and resources in the chat or ask questions later on. A few things for now, we have an orientation document that includes our schedule and links to session slides and recordings.
So if you can't make one of the sessions, you'll be able to check the document to catch up there. There is also an online companion resource to these sessions, the Pub101 Canvas curriculum, so that's where you'll find some more information. We're recording this session, so you'll be able to catch up on the video, and we are committed to providing a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for everyone aligned with our community norms, so please join us in creating a safe and constructive space. All of the links that I mentioned will be on our Linktree, and I will also share the link to our Padlet in the chat. Those are the links, and we'll circle back to the Padlet toward the end of the session when we're at our Q&A. So with all of that in mind, I will now hand things over to Carla. Thank you, Carla.
Carla: Thank you so much for getting us kicked off, Jessica. Can you hear me and see my slides?
Jessica: Yes.
Carla: Awesome. Okay, I will dive in. So hi everybody. I am so excited to be here with you today and to always be part of Pub101, which is such a fantastic program. I'm here today to talk with you about memorandums of understanding, which I can tell you from experience, becomes a really important part of the process of helping people create MOUs and supporting this important work on our campus. Why is that my screen going forward? There we go. Let's see if I can move this away. Cool. Okay, so what I want to talk about today is, where does this come into the process? What can it do to help you facilitate things? And then how to constructively put one together and use it as a tool?
So where do MOUs usually come in? So first off, we have a call for proposals for a program that we have to support the publishing of open textbooks and educational materials. So you put that call out there. Hopefully you get many, many creative and wonderful responses. So you and your team start to go through them to figure out which will be the best fit for your project. And then based off that work, you decide here are the projects that we've selected. This is when our MOU really comes into play, although we share it and kind of discuss it with people in that first stage of the process, or as they are applying. But this is where step number four, we get to the point of actually signing one with a faculty member. So what is an MOU? It stands for Memorandum of Understanding. It's a formal, although not necessarily legal document, and what it basically does is just outline the way that two parties have agreed to work together to achieve something or to do something or to have a final product.
It can be as short or as long as you want it to be. I've seen MOUs that don't even take up half a page. I've seen MOUs that are 20 pages long. I think most often, especially for these types of projects, maybe expect about one to two to three pages, depending on how much information you want to put in there. So why have an MOU? I think it can really help set the tone for the project. I think one of the key things is it really formally establishes the expectations for everybody involved, not just the person you're going to be working with who are going to be creating the open educational materials, but what they can expect from you as well. All parties involved should be covered in this. It also provides a source document that you can go back and consult in a variety of different situations.
If you're like, "Oh wait, what citation format did we agree to? What was the dates for those specific due dates?" you can go look at that document and that information is going to be there. But also, with a circulation background, it is nice sometimes to be able to point to policies when you are trying to enforce behavior or rules. And if a faculty member submits a manuscript that is an MLA format, but you requested APA in the MOU, it gives you that source document to go back to and be like, "I was surprised to see the MLA format after we discussed APA. This was in our MOU. Let's talk about how we can work together to make sure you can get these revisions taken care of." So kind of go back and manage expectations if, for some reason, they are not being met. Who is the agreement between? Generally, for these programs, it is going to be between the individuals who are creating the open educational materials. And usually, it's between the library or the institution.
That kind of depends on a couple things. Who's going to hold the copyright? Who is managing the program? Maybe who's funding the program? This is a little different for every institution. So this is one of the things you'll want to figure out. Is it going to be between your library or department or the larger institution and the individuals creating those materials? What is in your MOU? Whatever you want to be in your MOU can be in your MOU as long as it generally relates to the project there project. There are a few key things you really want to have in there though to make sure that it's a functional document for everybody. First off is, what are the authors going to be delivering? Writing the text, finding images and figures, creating images and figures on their own if there are permissions to be cleared. So for example, maybe they're interested in using some works in their OER that are not covered by a Creative Commons license.
So you want them to go get permission from the original creator, their responsibilities for doing that, and what you want that to look like. And then how I talked about it covers two different parties, the person writing the materials and the services you're offering, what that can cover is what you have agreed to do. And it can be a variety of things. Maybe you're going to help them in finding contributors or peer reviewers for the document. Maybe the services you are providing are related to copy editing. Maybe it's layout. And then of course the publication, what shape that is going to take and what formats it's going to be in. So these are the kind of key things that we recommend be in any MOU for it to be functional for one of these OER projects. What is your timeline? This is a really important part of the MOU, because I think aside from little nuanced things, like citation formats or things like this, deadlines are the biggest thing I run into problems with. And I'm going to quantify that word "problems" here in a second.
When working with faculty authors on creating these works, so what are their deadlines for deliverables? Is everything going to be deliverable at one particular date? Are you working on a project where maybe they'll submit some materials on this date, a few more materials on that date? And then, of course, what are your due dates for getting everything back to them? If you're working on copy editing, what is the timeline for turning those edits around and getting them back to the author to review? And then what's their timeline for getting that back to you? If you are working on layout and all those final steps for pre-publication, how long do you have to do that? Is it three months? Is it six months? That might be dependent on the size and the scope of the project. So to go back and quantify how I used the word "problem" earlier, I mean that in the nicest possible way.
I wrote a book a few years ago and I missed some of my deadlines, and I pretty much called my editor in tears every single time because I felt so bad. And something interesting she shared with me is, she said, "Carla, only about 20% of people ever meet their original deadlines for book publication. Life happens; we expect delays." She said, "What I appreciate is you are talking to me." And I tell the same people who work with me as well, "We're going to set these initial deadlines. If problems come up and life happens, you get assigned an extra class, you have somebody in your family who gets sick, you get injured and need to take a little time off, things like that, then just talk with me. If I know there's something going on, I can work with that deadline." But she talked about the problems that arise when people miss deadlines and they just won't talk to you. You don't hear anything from them. They don't reply to emails.
A while back when I was a journal editor, I had an author who missed their deadline. I emailed after a few weeks. I emailed after about a month of missing their deadline. I tried calling them from my office, no response. So finally after, I think it was about two and a half, three months, I called them from my cell phone, which had a very different area code from where I worked. And they picked up the phone and they said, "Hi, so-and-so library." And I said, "Hey, it's Carla. How's it going?" And crickets. And they said, "Carla, I'm so sorry. I know I've been ignoring your emails. I just fell so behind on this project and I was so embarrassed to say anything to you." And that's what I've discovered. When people are missing deadlines, most of the time, it is because things have happened in their life and they feel really bad about it, or maybe even embarrassed that they're missing it. So keeping those clear lines of communication open around the publication date, especially if you are working with a third party group.
The only time we have really solid publication dates here is when working with a group like Scribe or somebody else to provide some of those services that we can't do in-house. They've worked those into a certain timeline for their business. And if we need to do a big shift, I need to talk with them about it too. So having these dates in your MOU is of critical importance, and then also letting your authors and creators know to what extent do we have flexibility in this? You may have it in some spots, you may not in others, but this is a great way to communicate what that looks like.
Another big thing is how these materials will be submitted. Are they going to be using an online platform for publishing in its entirety? Are they going to be submitted via a Word doc? I once had somebody try submitting something and I kind of understood their intent. It was one of those open publication word processing forms, word processing documents, and it was just kind of a disaster for me trying to get all the information from that document into Microsoft Word so I could start to do what I needed to do. In the end, I had to copy everything to paste it into WordPad to remove out all the formatting from the old program to put it into Word and to go back and formatting that. And when I was talking to the person, unfortunately this was just chapter contribution, they said, "Yeah, I just don't like Microsoft, so I always use this online program." So ever since then, we are very clear that we expect things to be submitted in Microsoft Word format. What is that file format? What is the format for images, charts and graphs? Not just the file type, but also what is the resolution?
And then citations, definitely making it clear what citation format you want to use and who is responsible for ensuring that citations are properly formatted. I've gotten manuscripts that seem to use seven different citation styles including a few I think they made up. As I said earlier, I've had one submitted in one format that completely is different from what we asked it to be submitted in. Unless your institution has a whole department kind of committed to providing support for these services, most of us don't have time to go back and fix all those citation errors. So just being really clear upfront, to what extent do you expect them to be responsible for making sure everything is properly formatted and that everything cited in their paper is found in the bibliography, or if it's in the bibliography, that it's cited somewhere in the paper.
I don't necessarily think it's maliciously done, but I would say it's my experience, maybe there's always about 10 to 12% of the things cited in the text that somehow didn't end up in the bibliography. So having them go through and double check to make sure they have all their citations there too. You might do that a little bit as part of the copy editing process, but if their mind is on that before they even submit you the manuscript, that can be really helpful.
Copyright considerations, this is really important to have in the MOU as well because I think this can be a point of confusion, not just because of the Creative Commons licenses, but then to what extent is your institution taking an interest or being involved in the copyright? Again, when I say confusion around the Creative Commons licenses, I mean that in a very nice way.
I've worked faculty who don't realize that under the Creative Commons licenses we use, they get to keep their copyright, that they're merely licensing this out for others to use, so clarifying that point. But then also, is this a single person writing this? Is it a work of joint authorship? Are there student authors? And something really important we focus on here at Miami University is, if there are student authors and the work was created as part of a class, could there be a FERPA or educational privacy consideration where we need to get a waiver for that use because student records are protected under FERPA laws? Could there be work-made-for-hire situations? I once worked with a faculty member, and it was really interesting. They had their husband create a bunch of images. They're like, "That's my husband. I don't care." I'm like, "I care. I just need a short little permissions email from him." But then they also hired a student to create some of the charts and graphs and images. And because they paid that student, that actually ended up being a little bit of a work-made-for-hire situation, so making sure we had the same permissions from the student as well and incorporating all of these together.
Some MOUs, and some don't, include certifications and indemnifications. So certifications is usually just saying, I am the person who created the work, that I hold the copyright image, and I am in the position to make it available under this license. And then indemnifications, making sure the work is free from any libelous materials or anything else that could put your institution at risk. I have yet to really see anything that would come anywhere near them needing to indemnify the university. The thing we're more interested in is the certifications. Especially what I tend to see is faculty will reuse works that they've published elsewhere, so an article or a chapter in another book, and making sure they're certifying that either they retain their copyright when they published it so it can be reused here, or if it's part of their publication agreement with that journal or that publishing house, if they sign their copyright over, they got permission from them, the editor, the publisher, whoever that is, to reuse the work in here. And then of course, choosing that open license that they want to use.
So, budget. A big thing here is how much is being paid? How is that money being distributed? Is it being distributed all up front? Is it being distributed in increments that are tied to time? Is it being distributed in increments that are tied to different completion points? Is it all being distributed at the end? And then what type of expenses can it pay? Because Miami University is a state institution, if we are using state funds, that's kind of regulated in what that can be spent on, as versus, we also do have some donor funds that are used to fund some of our affordability initiatives. And because those come from individuals, the way that can be used to pay bills or individuals is slightly different from state funds. So being cognizant and making sure that's clearly communicated as well.
Contingency planning. The biggest thing I can say with publication, having been a journal editor for 10 years and then working with people on OER projects, is issues will arise. It's just a natural part of life. And the biggest thing is to keep clear and open lines of communication open so everybody knows where everything is. And it's not just on the author side. You could have somebody helping you out with your publication program, but then that person leaves to take another job or to go back to school or for family or something like that. Now, that may alter your timeline in the expectations of the faculty member. So making sure you're talking back and forth about that.
And when that happens, do we either need to go back to the MOU and revise something, whether it's dates or what they're going to be delivering. We originally said there was going to be 75 images and now there's only going to be 25. Or will it get to the point where you are going to cancel the MOU or contract with them in its entirety. I did have this happen once. We had a faculty member we provided a grant to. I think about three months in, they had a family consideration come up. And they emailed me right away, and then I didn't hear them for a bit. And they said, "I'm still doing caregiving for this family member." And then I didn't hear them for a bit. And they ended up reaching out and they said, "It's always on my mind that I'm not doing this, that I'm not getting this to you. What's the best way for us to proceed?" And in the end, what we decided to do was cancel our MOU so we could redirect those funds to another project, with the understanding that when they found that they had more time in their life, some of the things that they were supporting and working on, they were no longer needed for, that they could come back and we could reconsider their application for a publication.
So just being prepared to have that conversation as well. Sometimes you need to cancel because somebody is not delivering what they said they would, or just not delivering at all. And I think in those situations the biggest thing is just making sure somebody at the institution has your back as you're having that conversation about, "You're not meeting the terms we agreed to. This doesn't fit the scope of our program or what we need to effectively publish it for you, therefore we're going to terminate this contract or MOU."
Drafting your MOU, a few things to keep in mind. Be aware of institutional policies and considerations. So one of the big things here might be if the people you're working with are unionized at your institution. Very often, unions spell out in their contracts the amount of work that they're doing, what they're being compensated for. And if this is seen as extra work, there may be considerations for discussing it with the union. There may be pay scales or things like that associated with the union you have to be cognizant of. Again, like I said, we are a state entity, so are there any considerations associated with that that we have to make sure is being addressed in that MOU? Check with human resources or your campus legal counsel just to get some advice or guidance on that.
Something else you want to think about is, do you want to draft your own from the ground up, or do you want to swipe something somebody else has used and use that as a template for yours? I very much encourage swiping. I know with the Pub101 we have several different draft versions of MOUs available. Go in, take a look at those, get an idea of what different institutions are looking for. Kind of start to pick and choose what might work for best from all of those for your particular institution. Some people do choose to write them from the ground up. Originally, we used one that we kind of pulled together here at Miami University based off materials other institutions had shared with us that they were using for their programs. And then eventually, I ended up working with our legal counsel to kind of draft one that used some of that information, but some other information we had to have as a result of being a state entity. So I would say it's now about 40% from other institutions and about 60% Miami. So we kind of ended up drafting our own inspired by the others.
Tips and recommendations. Use plain language. There can be a temptation to start to work a lot of legalese into these documents. It's not necessarily needed and where it is needed, either provide a good explanation after that legalese, or make it very clear you're willing to make sure they're clear on every single sentence before they actually sign that document. Organize it logically, whether that's here's what the author is going to do, here's what we're going to do, with corresponding sections under that, such as deadlines, things like that, but really focusing what are the key things you need for your program to be successful? Setting expectations. We found it was best to make people aware of these MOUs early on, so we have them available whenever we put out a call for proposal.
If somebody submits an application, when I reply to their email thanking them for their submission, I include, "Hey, attached here again is a copy of the MOU you would sign if you are accepted into this program. Please look it through and let me know if you have any questions about it." If somebody is accepted into our program, I sit down and go through the MOU with them line by line to certify expectations before we formally launch the project, and that can be really helpful. It's time consuming on both sides, but...
One time I had a faculty member who was accepted into our program, and I was so excited. His open educational resource was going to be unlike anything I'd ever seen before in music and OER. And when it got to the part, when we got to the end, he said, "Well, Carla, there's no part in here that talks about royalties." And I was like, "Oh, well, that's actually because there are no royalties. We pay these funds for the creation of the OER, but because this is really available, there's no payments beyond that." And his reaction was, "Oh, but my son is getting ready to go to college. And I was counting on royalties from this to help pay the tuition bills." So he ended up going and finding a commercial publisher. And yes, we were sad not to see it be an OER, but I was really glad we were able to clear up those expectations before we even got started, as versus him doing all of that work and contacting me after and saying, "Hey, when can I expect my royalty check?" And of course, just being available to answer questions at any time during the process.
Again, communicate, communicate, communicate. Just make sure everybody feels comfortable talking to each other about their progress that they're making, any progress they might not be making. If they have technical questions related to the MOU, like citation styles, are you using footnotes, endnotes, things like that, that they ask those during the project rather than waiting till it's submitted and seeing lots of changes needed to be done, made then.
We schedule regular checkups with our faculty. I try not to be too pushy depending on the scope of the project, it's maybe about every month, every month or two. But during that, I'll say, "I was reviewing the MOU and I see we have a deadline coming up next month. How do you feel like you're making progress toward that?" So you can use that to reference things. And when problems arise, what is negotiable? What is not negotiable? Maybe for your institution the citation style is not negotiable. Maybe it is. Maybe some of your deadlines are negotiable, maybe some of them aren't because you have projects scheduled for each year. And if they go over the year, then that's going to run into the next one. Make sure that you identify where you can be flexible and where that language is a little bit more set in stone, and be comfortable having those conversations with the people in your program.
So I've thrown a ton of information at you. I welcome questions about any and all of this. And I know MOUs, because they do tend to look legal, it can seem to be a little bit overwhelming, but I will say the resources made available, the sample MOUs and information available through Pub101, really can get you off to a good start.
Jessica: Thank you so much, Carla, for all of that information. That's fantastic. We at UTA are deep into our own MOU time right now, so I made it through some notes here on ways we could improve our MOUs for the next time we do it. So I think that's fantastic. We're getting ready for our Q&A. But before we do that, I'm going to drop the Padlet link into the chat again. And if everyone could take a look at this link and give us some feedback on this topic about what you would like faculty members to know about this topic.
So we are on week four of the Padlet. And looking down there, the exact prompt is what do you want faculty to know about working with you as you make open textbooks together on the topic of MOUs, you can add your anonymous feedback with that plus sign at the bottom. And that will be available for you going forward as well, so no need to hurry up and do that right now. But let's go ahead and move on to the Q&A session. So if you would like to put questions in the chat, we'll go ahead and ask those. If anyone wants to get on mic and ask, that would be fantastic too. So are there any questions? I have a question for you, actually, while we're waiting.
Carla: Sure.
Jessica: When you create your MOUs, obviously you'll keep a copy, the authors will keep a copy. Does that go anywhere else? Does anyone else keep a copy of the MOUs? Are they ever shared publicly?
Carla: Google Drive does, and that is for longevity considerations. So for example, my copy is just usually stored on my computer so I can pull it up and reference it because, God bless Google Drive, it can be hard to find things in there sometimes. But we do have a shared folder that my boss, that other people in my department can go in and take a look at, and that our legal counsel always has access to. Thank goodness we've never had a situation where we kind of have to get legal counsel involved. The only time I could ever see that is if we made a payment of money to faculty, and then they decided, "Okay, I'm just going to stop talking to Carla and not do anything."
Okay, now what's the process for getting that back? And our funds are awarded as professional development funds sent to their department. So I think we would just work with their chair to have it sent back, and then the chair can work that out with the faculty member later. But on the off chance that they need to ever reference it, they can go in and see it too. And then if I ever leave Miami University, just making sure that folder continues to be accessible to people who can pass it along to whoever my replacement might be. So if that person needs to go back and check on anything or if there's any projects and status, they can have access to that too.
Jessica: Fantastic. Thank you. All right, there's a question in the chat. Do you have thoughts on how, as more faculty authors use AI, you may think about that and its impact on MOUs and or copyright issues?
Carla: Absolutely, and that's a fantastic question. And I will say, as a copyright librarian, copyright and AI is absolutely fascinating. And right now, the interesting thing is, what we're hearing in terms of information from the copyright office, and I think one court, is that there is no copyright in AI produced works because to be eligible for copyright protection, the work has to be generated by a human. And it's not being generated by humans. It's being generated by a computer. So first off, that's certainly going to have implications in them certifying that they are the rights holder of the work. This is way down the legal road.
There's three situations with copyright and AI. There is the code that is behind the interface. There is the ingestion of materials that it can use then for the output. Right now, we have no law saying that that output is eligible for copyright protection because it was created by a computer. The big question, and we see a lot of lawsuits around this right now, and the US Copyright office is looking at this problem, is what about all the copyrighted this platform ingested to create the output? Those are copyrighted materials. They are used substantially when we enter a prompt. Are those derivative works? Is that considered a fair use? If it's a derivative work, then do the people who originally authored those works have some type of ownership in that downstream work? Would it be considered maybe a joint authorship situation?
So I think moving forward, at some point, we will have to address, if you use AI to help author this work, that that needs to be brought to our attention what sections that is. Now, we all use AI every day and we don't think about it. I cannot spell my way out of a paper bag. Spell check or grammar check that we very often see in Word, that is kind of its own little form of AI based off other works. We think you meant to use this word instead of the word you typed in. We would have no problem with that kind of basic revisional work, but anything much more substantial than that... But right now, we just talk about self-authorship, that it's all created by them or any other collaborators that they've identified. But that will come. That's a fantastic question.
Jessica: That certainly has been a hot topic as well from what I'm hearing, talking with faculty members, and what I'm afraid I'm hearing is a lot of very cavalier attitudes about, "There's no copyright on this and everything's fine." And it's just, all right, let's have that conversation.
Carla: They are right that there's no copyright in the output, but I would hesitate to say at the moment, everything is fine, especially if they're going to reuse it in publications because we don't know what law or lawsuits might come down the road. That talk about attribution or reuse, or I think there's even been talk about a licensing scheme if works go into an AI platform, are those identified? And then the way that they are outputted, there's some type of end license due fee from the person using it. It's kind of the wild west out there right now. Nothing is definitive, but I would caution people that it's, and maybe... I don't want to say fine. We don't know at the moment, but to be thoughtful about what that might mean down the road.
Jessica: Definitely. Any other questions? Karen dropped in the chat a link to another session on AI and OER publishing, which I think would be fascinating to attend.
Carla: Yeah, I want to attend that.
Jessica: Yes. Any other questions from our audience? We have some good feedback in the Padlet. Please continue to share your thoughts on there of what we would like our faculty members to know. Does anyone have experience with creating MOUs? There's another question in here. So I mentioned in Padlet that their experiences with MOUs have been intimidating in the past. Do you have thoughts on why that is true for some of us, how is it more an agreement than a legal document?
Carla: So I definitely understand the intimidating part. When I first started working with copyright law about 20 years ago, I swear I went to the bathroom and cried in the office. I went to the bathroom and cried at least once a week because I'm like, "I'm going to mess this up. I'm going to get my university sued." And something that helped me is realizing that we deal with all different kinds of legal information. We tend to be, people who work in libraries, very well versed in privacy law, and we understand what we can and cannot do. If we are working a service desk and somebody else comes up and says, I think I have the flu, can you diagnose me? We're going to say, no, we can't get into that. We can give you good information on what having the flu might look and feel like that you can go discuss with your medical professional, but we're not in a position to give medical advice.
And so once I kind of started to understand, we do this work in other areas confidently and we kind of already know where the lines are, I started to get more comfortable with it. I think if you're feeling a little overwhelmed, the best piece of advice that I can give is to go to those MOUs that have been shared out by other institutions and start there. There're going to be a really great guide about the language people are using, the topics that they're covering. You can always put out an email. Does anybody else have one that covers this topic, like AI? You might be surprised at the responses that you get. I will just say, at any point if you ever have any questions, my eagerness to support MOUs and copyright and the related issues is not just tied to this session. You are most welcome to reach out to me at any time.
And I think also, just sitting down and talking with the author or authors, that this MOU is not intended to be a gotcha or "We're going to chase you down and enforce this." That we really wanted to find out clearly who's going to do what. Because you know what, as I learned in Pub101, publishing is a big thing. It's kind of like hosting a conference. If you just kind of see everything going on in the front end, you don't necessarily understand everything that's gone on behind the scenes in order to get to that final point. So we're just trying to make sure we have the clarity we need to smoothly work through all those different stages as well. I think the biggest thing with MOUs, kind of like I mentioned before, can just be clarifying expectations. Just making it really clear, we need you to be tracking permissions.
I once had a faculty member who sent me a folder with a hundred images. They're like, "Yeah, I found them on Google. That's my citation for it." And I'm like, "No. No. We talked about it ahead of time, here's this permissions form," and going back and working through that. So it's just really setting those expectations and having the clear conversations about them. And I think if faculty have questions, just being willing to work through those two. I hope that's helpful.
Jessica: I think that is definitely very helpful. Another question, interesting question actually, in the chat from Evangeline. "On my campus, I hear pushback that there isn't a need to have a formal document for OER publishing because we trust our faculty. It's seen as unnecessary work, and perhaps even aggressive. Any suggestions for pushing back against this?"
Carla: Yeah. Between all of us, trust but verify. And I wouldn't say, it's not that I don't trust somebody to get something done. I wouldn't give somebody an award of $10,000 to create something if I didn't trust them. This to me, much like a syllabus, spells out expectations for the semester. Here's the work you're going to be doing. Here's due dates. Here's how we want assignments and things like that structured. This is kind of doing the same thing. So in the same way that as you progress through a semester, you have that syllabus to guide, too, and the instructor and student can go back to that syllabus if there's questions. "Well, student, you submitted this an MLA format. And in the syllabus, we did say APA."
That MOU kind of functions in the same way, as a guide establishing dates, establishing expectations, and as a resource we can both consult when we're meeting if we have questions about how to move forward. And with their argument, then maybe they don't want to use a syllabus because they should trust their students. I will say that in here. I wouldn't say that to the faculty member, but I think that's how I would approach that conversation.
Jessica: There's a good response here from Sara about... Well, this is about tough conversations. "I could see an MOU being kind because it provides clarity." I think that's definitely true.
Carla: And I'll agree with you 100%. I'm having a big conversation with my staff right now about signage. My pet peeve is aggressive signage. I don't like signage that says, "You can't do this." At one of my previous institutions, there was a big sign on the front desk that said, "No ID, no service." And I hated that sign because, first off, anybody can come up to the desk and ask a question and that's service. And you don't have to present an ID to ask, "Where's the bathroom?"
But how do we word those signs instead? A photo ID is required for checkout, as versus no ID, no service. And I think MOUs are exactly the same way. If we write them in a way that is positive and encouraging and clear, and approach our conversations with them about that, hopefully it can be a good experience. If it's, "You must, we demand," using that kind of language, I could see the authors finding that a little bit more of an overwhelming experience.
Jessica: I've certainly heard that from faculty too, and I think having something that is very clear and positive, like you said, makes them feel more supported and they know that we have it under control because we've thought ahead for all of these different points and we anticipate the things that may happen. So I think it's an encouraging way to start the relationship, which is obviously a multi-year relationship in many cases.
Okay, another question down here, this is getting in the weeds, but are authors typically asked to deal with permissions and MOUs for OER creation? To what extent do you provide guidance in this area even if authors take the lead?
Carla: Yes. Fantastic question. We are a one-woman shop here at Miami University. It's me. And with all of my other job responsibilities, there's no way I can manage permissions for projects like these. So we have a conversation upfront. So in terms of copyright, we are expecting things that they have self-authored, that if they want to reuse third-party works, it needs to either be Creative Commons work or work that they have gotten permission for. Or maybe possibly fair use, depending on the previous other two.
The vast majority of faculty that I work with, when they're looking to reuse images, I'll be frank, they're going to Google and doing an image search and pulling those. So we talk about, how do they investigate whether or not those are Creative Commons works? How to do a Creative Commons search? But the big thing I emphasize is, start tracking those permissions from day one, because even if you can remember the search terms you use, it doesn't mean that image that you found is still going to be available.
So we have a cool little spreadsheet that we use now, and it's actually based off the spreadsheet that my publisher gave me when I wrote a book to track permissions. And it basically says, what is the title of the item? And I matched that up to what's in the book. Where did you find it at? What's the URL? Who is listed as the author? So kind of tracking all that information. If it's Creative Commons, what is the license? Did you obtain permission? What is the name of that file that has permissions? So that's one of the things we have in our opening conversation, is let me pull up this permission spreadsheet and show you what it looks like, and that we expect you to be tracking your own permissions. If they have questions, "I'm not certain who's the rights holder," or "How do I reach out?" Then I'm happy to work with them to give them templates for asking permissions and what does that process look like.
But here, at least at Miami University, and most institutions I know, they are responsible for tracking the use of all third-party works, and then where applicable, getting those permissions if we have to make a fair use determination, I do do that on behalf of Miami University because we are publishing it, and therefore we could be taking on the liability. I think maybe twice I've done that, so far. It's a pretty rare occurrence.
Jessica: We have a request as well in there. If you have an example of the spreadsheet for tracking permissions, if we would be able to share that.
Carla: Yeah. I'm still open into questions, but I'm going to go ahead and start pulling that up right now so I can send it to Karen as soon as we're done.
Jessica: Are there any further questions? Questions or thoughts or reactions, or anything on this topic?
Sara Davidson Squibb: I'm just curious how many projects you're typically tracking at any one time.
Carla: Usually it's one, just because, again, I'm a one-woman show. So I manage our affordable learning programs across campus. For the past two years, I've been the interim head of my department. I have my copyright librarian responsibilities. I work with office of general counsel on copyright issues on campus. I can't handle any more than one at once, depending on the size. We've had some smaller projects that are one that's gotten done in a few months because they pretty much already had everything written. It was kind of a nice break to me to have the rest of the year to kind of focus on other things and not worry about project management. I had another one that took about a year and a half because of some things they had going on. So it did overlap a little bit with another project, but it was enough that I could manage it and have that talk with my boss like, "Hey, I might not be doing as much work in this area because I'm supporting two projects at this time."
Sara Davidson Squibb: Thanks.
Jessica: Another comment in the chat from Linda. Linda uses a letter template offered to the authors as a tool, but charges them with getting tracking and documenting permissions. Then she asks the authors to sign a statement that they have taken care of this. And Karen points out that there is a publishing toolkit that has more permission spreadsheet templates. And Evangeline says, "This was incredibly useful. I feel better prepared to tackle talking about," and potentially putting together an MOU for her project. So that's great to hear. Fantastic.
Carla: I'm so glad to hear that. And again, there's definitely institutions that do that. I kind of want the document with everything in it, highlighting permissions, but there are some institutions that just have the person sign off saying, I've gotten permission for everything, and that's that. There's no right or wrong way. It's whatever your institution decides is best. And Karen, thank you for pointing out those spreadsheets and resources that are available as well.
Jessica: Fantastic. Well, let's do one more call for questions. Any final questions as we are wrapping up here today? All right. In which case, thank you very much, Carla, for joining us and for presenting on this topic today. I think this was extremely practical, but also I think for many of us, reassuring that it's not an overwhelming thing to do, that it's absolutely manageable and worth taking the time to do.
So thank you all for joining us. I'm going to drop some more links in the chat again, just as a reminder, the Padlet for you to follow up with things that you would like faculty members to know on this topic, and our Linktree so you can get back to the rest of our resources and follow up on this if you want to refer back to it. There's a Linktree. Thanks again for joining us. Thanks again, Carla. And we will see you next week.
Carla: Thanks everybody.
Jessica: Thanks everyone.
END OF VIDEO
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This May 1, 2024, session of Pub101 is the fourth in our series this year. Our discussion of Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) in open publishing is led by Carla Myers of Miami University Libraries. Today's host is Jessica McClean from of the University of Texas at Arlington.
Watch the video recording of this session or keep reading for a full transcript. For those interested in reading the conversation that took place among participants and the resources shared, the chat transcript is also available below.
Note: If your comments appear in the transcripts and you would like your name or other identifying information removed, please contact Tonia.
Audio Transcript
Speakers:
- Jessica McClean (Director of OER, University of Texas at Arlington)
- Carla Myers (Assistant Librarian & Coordinator of Scholarly Communications, Miami University Libraries)
Jessica: All right. I haven't seen anyone join the waiting room for a couple of minutes, so I think we're going to go ahead and get started. Hello everyone, and welcome to today's session of the Open Education Networks Pub101. Thank you for joining us. My name is Jessica McLean. I'm the director of OER at the University of Texas at Arlington, and I'll be your host and facilitator today. I apologize for not being on camera. I'm having some computer troubles today. So soon, I'll be handing off the presentation to Carla Myers from the Miami University Libraries to talk about MOUs. And as always, we'll have time for your questions and conversation. We invite you to share your experiences and resources in the chat or ask questions later on. A few things for now, we have an orientation document that includes our schedule and links to session slides and recordings.
So if you can't make one of the sessions, you'll be able to check the document to catch up there. There is also an online companion resource to these sessions, the Pub101 Canvas curriculum, so that's where you'll find some more information. We're recording this session, so you'll be able to catch up on the video, and we are committed to providing a friendly, safe, and welcoming environment for everyone aligned with our community norms, so please join us in creating a safe and constructive space. All of the links that I mentioned will be on our Linktree, and I will also share the link to our Padlet in the chat. Those are the links, and we'll circle back to the Padlet toward the end of the session when we're at our Q&A. So with all of that in mind, I will now hand things over to Carla. Thank you, Carla.
Carla: Thank you so much for getting us kicked off, Jessica. Can you hear me and see my slides?
Jessica: Yes.
Carla: Awesome. Okay, I will dive in. So hi everybody. I am so excited to be here with you today and to always be part of Pub101, which is such a fantastic program. I'm here today to talk with you about memorandums of understanding, which I can tell you from experience, becomes a really important part of the process of helping people create MOUs and supporting this important work on our campus. Why is that my screen going forward? There we go. Let's see if I can move this away. Cool. Okay, so what I want to talk about today is, where does this come into the process? What can it do to help you facilitate things? And then how to constructively put one together and use it as a tool?
So where do MOUs usually come in? So first off, we have a call for proposals for a program that we have to support the publishing of open textbooks and educational materials. So you put that call out there. Hopefully you get many, many creative and wonderful responses. So you and your team start to go through them to figure out which will be the best fit for your project. And then based off that work, you decide here are the projects that we've selected. This is when our MOU really comes into play, although we share it and kind of discuss it with people in that first stage of the process, or as they are applying. But this is where step number four, we get to the point of actually signing one with a faculty member. So what is an MOU? It stands for Memorandum of Understanding. It's a formal, although not necessarily legal document, and what it basically does is just outline the way that two parties have agreed to work together to achieve something or to do something or to have a final product.
It can be as short or as long as you want it to be. I've seen MOUs that don't even take up half a page. I've seen MOUs that are 20 pages long. I think most often, especially for these types of projects, maybe expect about one to two to three pages, depending on how much information you want to put in there. So why have an MOU? I think it can really help set the tone for the project. I think one of the key things is it really formally establishes the expectations for everybody involved, not just the person you're going to be working with who are going to be creating the open educational materials, but what they can expect from you as well. All parties involved should be covered in this. It also provides a source document that you can go back and consult in a variety of different situations.
If you're like, "Oh wait, what citation format did we agree to? What was the dates for those specific due dates?" you can go look at that document and that information is going to be there. But also, with a circulation background, it is nice sometimes to be able to point to policies when you are trying to enforce behavior or rules. And if a faculty member submits a manuscript that is an MLA format, but you requested APA in the MOU, it gives you that source document to go back to and be like, "I was surprised to see the MLA format after we discussed APA. This was in our MOU. Let's talk about how we can work together to make sure you can get these revisions taken care of." So kind of go back and manage expectations if, for some reason, they are not being met. Who is the agreement between? Generally, for these programs, it is going to be between the individuals who are creating the open educational materials. And usually, it's between the library or the institution.
That kind of depends on a couple things. Who's going to hold the copyright? Who is managing the program? Maybe who's funding the program? This is a little different for every institution. So this is one of the things you'll want to figure out. Is it going to be between your library or department or the larger institution and the individuals creating those materials? What is in your MOU? Whatever you want to be in your MOU can be in your MOU as long as it generally relates to the project there project. There are a few key things you really want to have in there though to make sure that it's a functional document for everybody. First off is, what are the authors going to be delivering? Writing the text, finding images and figures, creating images and figures on their own if there are permissions to be cleared. So for example, maybe they're interested in using some works in their OER that are not covered by a Creative Commons license.
So you want them to go get permission from the original creator, their responsibilities for doing that, and what you want that to look like. And then how I talked about it covers two different parties, the person writing the materials and the services you're offering, what that can cover is what you have agreed to do. And it can be a variety of things. Maybe you're going to help them in finding contributors or peer reviewers for the document. Maybe the services you are providing are related to copy editing. Maybe it's layout. And then of course the publication, what shape that is going to take and what formats it's going to be in. So these are the kind of key things that we recommend be in any MOU for it to be functional for one of these OER projects. What is your timeline? This is a really important part of the MOU, because I think aside from little nuanced things, like citation formats or things like this, deadlines are the biggest thing I run into problems with. And I'm going to quantify that word "problems" here in a second.
When working with faculty authors on creating these works, so what are their deadlines for deliverables? Is everything going to be deliverable at one particular date? Are you working on a project where maybe they'll submit some materials on this date, a few more materials on that date? And then, of course, what are your due dates for getting everything back to them? If you're working on copy editing, what is the timeline for turning those edits around and getting them back to the author to review? And then what's their timeline for getting that back to you? If you are working on layout and all those final steps for pre-publication, how long do you have to do that? Is it three months? Is it six months? That might be dependent on the size and the scope of the project. So to go back and quantify how I used the word "problem" earlier, I mean that in the nicest possible way.
I wrote a book a few years ago and I missed some of my deadlines, and I pretty much called my editor in tears every single time because I felt so bad. And something interesting she shared with me is, she said, "Carla, only about 20% of people ever meet their original deadlines for book publication. Life happens; we expect delays." She said, "What I appreciate is you are talking to me." And I tell the same people who work with me as well, "We're going to set these initial deadlines. If problems come up and life happens, you get assigned an extra class, you have somebody in your family who gets sick, you get injured and need to take a little time off, things like that, then just talk with me. If I know there's something going on, I can work with that deadline." But she talked about the problems that arise when people miss deadlines and they just won't talk to you. You don't hear anything from them. They don't reply to emails.
A while back when I was a journal editor, I had an author who missed their deadline. I emailed after a few weeks. I emailed after about a month of missing their deadline. I tried calling them from my office, no response. So finally after, I think it was about two and a half, three months, I called them from my cell phone, which had a very different area code from where I worked. And they picked up the phone and they said, "Hi, so-and-so library." And I said, "Hey, it's Carla. How's it going?" And crickets. And they said, "Carla, I'm so sorry. I know I've been ignoring your emails. I just fell so behind on this project and I was so embarrassed to say anything to you." And that's what I've discovered. When people are missing deadlines, most of the time, it is because things have happened in their life and they feel really bad about it, or maybe even embarrassed that they're missing it. So keeping those clear lines of communication open around the publication date, especially if you are working with a third party group.
The only time we have really solid publication dates here is when working with a group like Scribe or somebody else to provide some of those services that we can't do in-house. They've worked those into a certain timeline for their business. And if we need to do a big shift, I need to talk with them about it too. So having these dates in your MOU is of critical importance, and then also letting your authors and creators know to what extent do we have flexibility in this? You may have it in some spots, you may not in others, but this is a great way to communicate what that looks like.
Another big thing is how these materials will be submitted. Are they going to be using an online platform for publishing in its entirety? Are they going to be submitted via a Word doc? I once had somebody try submitting something and I kind of understood their intent. It was one of those open publication word processing forms, word processing documents, and it was just kind of a disaster for me trying to get all the information from that document into Microsoft Word so I could start to do what I needed to do. In the end, I had to copy everything to paste it into WordPad to remove out all the formatting from the old program to put it into Word and to go back and formatting that. And when I was talking to the person, unfortunately this was just chapter contribution, they said, "Yeah, I just don't like Microsoft, so I always use this online program." So ever since then, we are very clear that we expect things to be submitted in Microsoft Word format. What is that file format? What is the format for images, charts and graphs? Not just the file type, but also what is the resolution?
And then citations, definitely making it clear what citation format you want to use and who is responsible for ensuring that citations are properly formatted. I've gotten manuscripts that seem to use seven different citation styles including a few I think they made up. As I said earlier, I've had one submitted in one format that completely is different from what we asked it to be submitted in. Unless your institution has a whole department kind of committed to providing support for these services, most of us don't have time to go back and fix all those citation errors. So just being really clear upfront, to what extent do you expect them to be responsible for making sure everything is properly formatted and that everything cited in their paper is found in the bibliography, or if it's in the bibliography, that it's cited somewhere in the paper.
I don't necessarily think it's maliciously done, but I would say it's my experience, maybe there's always about 10 to 12% of the things cited in the text that somehow didn't end up in the bibliography. So having them go through and double check to make sure they have all their citations there too. You might do that a little bit as part of the copy editing process, but if their mind is on that before they even submit you the manuscript, that can be really helpful.
Copyright considerations, this is really important to have in the MOU as well because I think this can be a point of confusion, not just because of the Creative Commons licenses, but then to what extent is your institution taking an interest or being involved in the copyright? Again, when I say confusion around the Creative Commons licenses, I mean that in a very nice way.
I've worked faculty who don't realize that under the Creative Commons licenses we use, they get to keep their copyright, that they're merely licensing this out for others to use, so clarifying that point. But then also, is this a single person writing this? Is it a work of joint authorship? Are there student authors? And something really important we focus on here at Miami University is, if there are student authors and the work was created as part of a class, could there be a FERPA or educational privacy consideration where we need to get a waiver for that use because student records are protected under FERPA laws? Could there be work-made-for-hire situations? I once worked with a faculty member, and it was really interesting. They had their husband create a bunch of images. They're like, "That's my husband. I don't care." I'm like, "I care. I just need a short little permissions email from him." But then they also hired a student to create some of the charts and graphs and images. And because they paid that student, that actually ended up being a little bit of a work-made-for-hire situation, so making sure we had the same permissions from the student as well and incorporating all of these together.
Some MOUs, and some don't, include certifications and indemnifications. So certifications is usually just saying, I am the person who created the work, that I hold the copyright image, and I am in the position to make it available under this license. And then indemnifications, making sure the work is free from any libelous materials or anything else that could put your institution at risk. I have yet to really see anything that would come anywhere near them needing to indemnify the university. The thing we're more interested in is the certifications. Especially what I tend to see is faculty will reuse works that they've published elsewhere, so an article or a chapter in another book, and making sure they're certifying that either they retain their copyright when they published it so it can be reused here, or if it's part of their publication agreement with that journal or that publishing house, if they sign their copyright over, they got permission from them, the editor, the publisher, whoever that is, to reuse the work in here. And then of course, choosing that open license that they want to use.
So, budget. A big thing here is how much is being paid? How is that money being distributed? Is it being distributed all up front? Is it being distributed in increments that are tied to time? Is it being distributed in increments that are tied to different completion points? Is it all being distributed at the end? And then what type of expenses can it pay? Because Miami University is a state institution, if we are using state funds, that's kind of regulated in what that can be spent on, as versus, we also do have some donor funds that are used to fund some of our affordability initiatives. And because those come from individuals, the way that can be used to pay bills or individuals is slightly different from state funds. So being cognizant and making sure that's clearly communicated as well.
Contingency planning. The biggest thing I can say with publication, having been a journal editor for 10 years and then working with people on OER projects, is issues will arise. It's just a natural part of life. And the biggest thing is to keep clear and open lines of communication open so everybody knows where everything is. And it's not just on the author side. You could have somebody helping you out with your publication program, but then that person leaves to take another job or to go back to school or for family or something like that. Now, that may alter your timeline in the expectations of the faculty member. So making sure you're talking back and forth about that.
And when that happens, do we either need to go back to the MOU and revise something, whether it's dates or what they're going to be delivering. We originally said there was going to be 75 images and now there's only going to be 25. Or will it get to the point where you are going to cancel the MOU or contract with them in its entirety. I did have this happen once. We had a faculty member we provided a grant to. I think about three months in, they had a family consideration come up. And they emailed me right away, and then I didn't hear them for a bit. And they said, "I'm still doing caregiving for this family member." And then I didn't hear them for a bit. And they ended up reaching out and they said, "It's always on my mind that I'm not doing this, that I'm not getting this to you. What's the best way for us to proceed?" And in the end, what we decided to do was cancel our MOU so we could redirect those funds to another project, with the understanding that when they found that they had more time in their life, some of the things that they were supporting and working on, they were no longer needed for, that they could come back and we could reconsider their application for a publication.
So just being prepared to have that conversation as well. Sometimes you need to cancel because somebody is not delivering what they said they would, or just not delivering at all. And I think in those situations the biggest thing is just making sure somebody at the institution has your back as you're having that conversation about, "You're not meeting the terms we agreed to. This doesn't fit the scope of our program or what we need to effectively publish it for you, therefore we're going to terminate this contract or MOU."
Drafting your MOU, a few things to keep in mind. Be aware of institutional policies and considerations. So one of the big things here might be if the people you're working with are unionized at your institution. Very often, unions spell out in their contracts the amount of work that they're doing, what they're being compensated for. And if this is seen as extra work, there may be considerations for discussing it with the union. There may be pay scales or things like that associated with the union you have to be cognizant of. Again, like I said, we are a state entity, so are there any considerations associated with that that we have to make sure is being addressed in that MOU? Check with human resources or your campus legal counsel just to get some advice or guidance on that.
Something else you want to think about is, do you want to draft your own from the ground up, or do you want to swipe something somebody else has used and use that as a template for yours? I very much encourage swiping. I know with the Pub101 we have several different draft versions of MOUs available. Go in, take a look at those, get an idea of what different institutions are looking for. Kind of start to pick and choose what might work for best from all of those for your particular institution. Some people do choose to write them from the ground up. Originally, we used one that we kind of pulled together here at Miami University based off materials other institutions had shared with us that they were using for their programs. And then eventually, I ended up working with our legal counsel to kind of draft one that used some of that information, but some other information we had to have as a result of being a state entity. So I would say it's now about 40% from other institutions and about 60% Miami. So we kind of ended up drafting our own inspired by the others.
Tips and recommendations. Use plain language. There can be a temptation to start to work a lot of legalese into these documents. It's not necessarily needed and where it is needed, either provide a good explanation after that legalese, or make it very clear you're willing to make sure they're clear on every single sentence before they actually sign that document. Organize it logically, whether that's here's what the author is going to do, here's what we're going to do, with corresponding sections under that, such as deadlines, things like that, but really focusing what are the key things you need for your program to be successful? Setting expectations. We found it was best to make people aware of these MOUs early on, so we have them available whenever we put out a call for proposal.
If somebody submits an application, when I reply to their email thanking them for their submission, I include, "Hey, attached here again is a copy of the MOU you would sign if you are accepted into this program. Please look it through and let me know if you have any questions about it." If somebody is accepted into our program, I sit down and go through the MOU with them line by line to certify expectations before we formally launch the project, and that can be really helpful. It's time consuming on both sides, but...
One time I had a faculty member who was accepted into our program, and I was so excited. His open educational resource was going to be unlike anything I'd ever seen before in music and OER. And when it got to the part, when we got to the end, he said, "Well, Carla, there's no part in here that talks about royalties." And I was like, "Oh, well, that's actually because there are no royalties. We pay these funds for the creation of the OER, but because this is really available, there's no payments beyond that." And his reaction was, "Oh, but my son is getting ready to go to college. And I was counting on royalties from this to help pay the tuition bills." So he ended up going and finding a commercial publisher. And yes, we were sad not to see it be an OER, but I was really glad we were able to clear up those expectations before we even got started, as versus him doing all of that work and contacting me after and saying, "Hey, when can I expect my royalty check?" And of course, just being available to answer questions at any time during the process.
Again, communicate, communicate, communicate. Just make sure everybody feels comfortable talking to each other about their progress that they're making, any progress they might not be making. If they have technical questions related to the MOU, like citation styles, are you using footnotes, endnotes, things like that, that they ask those during the project rather than waiting till it's submitted and seeing lots of changes needed to be done, made then.
We schedule regular checkups with our faculty. I try not to be too pushy depending on the scope of the project, it's maybe about every month, every month or two. But during that, I'll say, "I was reviewing the MOU and I see we have a deadline coming up next month. How do you feel like you're making progress toward that?" So you can use that to reference things. And when problems arise, what is negotiable? What is not negotiable? Maybe for your institution the citation style is not negotiable. Maybe it is. Maybe some of your deadlines are negotiable, maybe some of them aren't because you have projects scheduled for each year. And if they go over the year, then that's going to run into the next one. Make sure that you identify where you can be flexible and where that language is a little bit more set in stone, and be comfortable having those conversations with the people in your program.
So I've thrown a ton of information at you. I welcome questions about any and all of this. And I know MOUs, because they do tend to look legal, it can seem to be a little bit overwhelming, but I will say the resources made available, the sample MOUs and information available through Pub101, really can get you off to a good start.
Jessica: Thank you so much, Carla, for all of that information. That's fantastic. We at UTA are deep into our own MOU time right now, so I made it through some notes here on ways we could improve our MOUs for the next time we do it. So I think that's fantastic. We're getting ready for our Q&A. But before we do that, I'm going to drop the Padlet link into the chat again. And if everyone could take a look at this link and give us some feedback on this topic about what you would like faculty members to know about this topic.
So we are on week four of the Padlet. And looking down there, the exact prompt is what do you want faculty to know about working with you as you make open textbooks together on the topic of MOUs, you can add your anonymous feedback with that plus sign at the bottom. And that will be available for you going forward as well, so no need to hurry up and do that right now. But let's go ahead and move on to the Q&A session. So if you would like to put questions in the chat, we'll go ahead and ask those. If anyone wants to get on mic and ask, that would be fantastic too. So are there any questions? I have a question for you, actually, while we're waiting.
Carla: Sure.
Jessica: When you create your MOUs, obviously you'll keep a copy, the authors will keep a copy. Does that go anywhere else? Does anyone else keep a copy of the MOUs? Are they ever shared publicly?
Carla: Google Drive does, and that is for longevity considerations. So for example, my copy is just usually stored on my computer so I can pull it up and reference it because, God bless Google Drive, it can be hard to find things in there sometimes. But we do have a shared folder that my boss, that other people in my department can go in and take a look at, and that our legal counsel always has access to. Thank goodness we've never had a situation where we kind of have to get legal counsel involved. The only time I could ever see that is if we made a payment of money to faculty, and then they decided, "Okay, I'm just going to stop talking to Carla and not do anything."
Okay, now what's the process for getting that back? And our funds are awarded as professional development funds sent to their department. So I think we would just work with their chair to have it sent back, and then the chair can work that out with the faculty member later. But on the off chance that they need to ever reference it, they can go in and see it too. And then if I ever leave Miami University, just making sure that folder continues to be accessible to people who can pass it along to whoever my replacement might be. So if that person needs to go back and check on anything or if there's any projects and status, they can have access to that too.
Jessica: Fantastic. Thank you. All right, there's a question in the chat. Do you have thoughts on how, as more faculty authors use AI, you may think about that and its impact on MOUs and or copyright issues?
Carla: Absolutely, and that's a fantastic question. And I will say, as a copyright librarian, copyright and AI is absolutely fascinating. And right now, the interesting thing is, what we're hearing in terms of information from the copyright office, and I think one court, is that there is no copyright in AI produced works because to be eligible for copyright protection, the work has to be generated by a human. And it's not being generated by humans. It's being generated by a computer. So first off, that's certainly going to have implications in them certifying that they are the rights holder of the work. This is way down the legal road.
There's three situations with copyright and AI. There is the code that is behind the interface. There is the ingestion of materials that it can use then for the output. Right now, we have no law saying that that output is eligible for copyright protection because it was created by a computer. The big question, and we see a lot of lawsuits around this right now, and the US Copyright office is looking at this problem, is what about all the copyrighted this platform ingested to create the output? Those are copyrighted materials. They are used substantially when we enter a prompt. Are those derivative works? Is that considered a fair use? If it's a derivative work, then do the people who originally authored those works have some type of ownership in that downstream work? Would it be considered maybe a joint authorship situation?
So I think moving forward, at some point, we will have to address, if you use AI to help author this work, that that needs to be brought to our attention what sections that is. Now, we all use AI every day and we don't think about it. I cannot spell my way out of a paper bag. Spell check or grammar check that we very often see in Word, that is kind of its own little form of AI based off other works. We think you meant to use this word instead of the word you typed in. We would have no problem with that kind of basic revisional work, but anything much more substantial than that... But right now, we just talk about self-authorship, that it's all created by them or any other collaborators that they've identified. But that will come. That's a fantastic question.
Jessica: That certainly has been a hot topic as well from what I'm hearing, talking with faculty members, and what I'm afraid I'm hearing is a lot of very cavalier attitudes about, "There's no copyright on this and everything's fine." And it's just, all right, let's have that conversation.
Carla: They are right that there's no copyright in the output, but I would hesitate to say at the moment, everything is fine, especially if they're going to reuse it in publications because we don't know what law or lawsuits might come down the road. That talk about attribution or reuse, or I think there's even been talk about a licensing scheme if works go into an AI platform, are those identified? And then the way that they are outputted, there's some type of end license due fee from the person using it. It's kind of the wild west out there right now. Nothing is definitive, but I would caution people that it's, and maybe... I don't want to say fine. We don't know at the moment, but to be thoughtful about what that might mean down the road.
Jessica: Definitely. Any other questions? Karen dropped in the chat a link to another session on AI and OER publishing, which I think would be fascinating to attend.
Carla: Yeah, I want to attend that.
Jessica: Yes. Any other questions from our audience? We have some good feedback in the Padlet. Please continue to share your thoughts on there of what we would like our faculty members to know. Does anyone have experience with creating MOUs? There's another question in here. So I mentioned in Padlet that their experiences with MOUs have been intimidating in the past. Do you have thoughts on why that is true for some of us, how is it more an agreement than a legal document?
Carla: So I definitely understand the intimidating part. When I first started working with copyright law about 20 years ago, I swear I went to the bathroom and cried in the office. I went to the bathroom and cried at least once a week because I'm like, "I'm going to mess this up. I'm going to get my university sued." And something that helped me is realizing that we deal with all different kinds of legal information. We tend to be, people who work in libraries, very well versed in privacy law, and we understand what we can and cannot do. If we are working a service desk and somebody else comes up and says, I think I have the flu, can you diagnose me? We're going to say, no, we can't get into that. We can give you good information on what having the flu might look and feel like that you can go discuss with your medical professional, but we're not in a position to give medical advice.
And so once I kind of started to understand, we do this work in other areas confidently and we kind of already know where the lines are, I started to get more comfortable with it. I think if you're feeling a little overwhelmed, the best piece of advice that I can give is to go to those MOUs that have been shared out by other institutions and start there. There're going to be a really great guide about the language people are using, the topics that they're covering. You can always put out an email. Does anybody else have one that covers this topic, like AI? You might be surprised at the responses that you get. I will just say, at any point if you ever have any questions, my eagerness to support MOUs and copyright and the related issues is not just tied to this session. You are most welcome to reach out to me at any time.
And I think also, just sitting down and talking with the author or authors, that this MOU is not intended to be a gotcha or "We're going to chase you down and enforce this." That we really wanted to find out clearly who's going to do what. Because you know what, as I learned in Pub101, publishing is a big thing. It's kind of like hosting a conference. If you just kind of see everything going on in the front end, you don't necessarily understand everything that's gone on behind the scenes in order to get to that final point. So we're just trying to make sure we have the clarity we need to smoothly work through all those different stages as well. I think the biggest thing with MOUs, kind of like I mentioned before, can just be clarifying expectations. Just making it really clear, we need you to be tracking permissions.
I once had a faculty member who sent me a folder with a hundred images. They're like, "Yeah, I found them on Google. That's my citation for it." And I'm like, "No. No. We talked about it ahead of time, here's this permissions form," and going back and working through that. So it's just really setting those expectations and having the clear conversations about them. And I think if faculty have questions, just being willing to work through those two. I hope that's helpful.
Jessica: I think that is definitely very helpful. Another question, interesting question actually, in the chat from Evangeline. "On my campus, I hear pushback that there isn't a need to have a formal document for OER publishing because we trust our faculty. It's seen as unnecessary work, and perhaps even aggressive. Any suggestions for pushing back against this?"
Carla: Yeah. Between all of us, trust but verify. And I wouldn't say, it's not that I don't trust somebody to get something done. I wouldn't give somebody an award of $10,000 to create something if I didn't trust them. This to me, much like a syllabus, spells out expectations for the semester. Here's the work you're going to be doing. Here's due dates. Here's how we want assignments and things like that structured. This is kind of doing the same thing. So in the same way that as you progress through a semester, you have that syllabus to guide, too, and the instructor and student can go back to that syllabus if there's questions. "Well, student, you submitted this an MLA format. And in the syllabus, we did say APA."
That MOU kind of functions in the same way, as a guide establishing dates, establishing expectations, and as a resource we can both consult when we're meeting if we have questions about how to move forward. And with their argument, then maybe they don't want to use a syllabus because they should trust their students. I will say that in here. I wouldn't say that to the faculty member, but I think that's how I would approach that conversation.
Jessica: There's a good response here from Sara about... Well, this is about tough conversations. "I could see an MOU being kind because it provides clarity." I think that's definitely true.
Carla: And I'll agree with you 100%. I'm having a big conversation with my staff right now about signage. My pet peeve is aggressive signage. I don't like signage that says, "You can't do this." At one of my previous institutions, there was a big sign on the front desk that said, "No ID, no service." And I hated that sign because, first off, anybody can come up to the desk and ask a question and that's service. And you don't have to present an ID to ask, "Where's the bathroom?"
But how do we word those signs instead? A photo ID is required for checkout, as versus no ID, no service. And I think MOUs are exactly the same way. If we write them in a way that is positive and encouraging and clear, and approach our conversations with them about that, hopefully it can be a good experience. If it's, "You must, we demand," using that kind of language, I could see the authors finding that a little bit more of an overwhelming experience.
Jessica: I've certainly heard that from faculty too, and I think having something that is very clear and positive, like you said, makes them feel more supported and they know that we have it under control because we've thought ahead for all of these different points and we anticipate the things that may happen. So I think it's an encouraging way to start the relationship, which is obviously a multi-year relationship in many cases.
Okay, another question down here, this is getting in the weeds, but are authors typically asked to deal with permissions and MOUs for OER creation? To what extent do you provide guidance in this area even if authors take the lead?
Carla: Yes. Fantastic question. We are a one-woman shop here at Miami University. It's me. And with all of my other job responsibilities, there's no way I can manage permissions for projects like these. So we have a conversation upfront. So in terms of copyright, we are expecting things that they have self-authored, that if they want to reuse third-party works, it needs to either be Creative Commons work or work that they have gotten permission for. Or maybe possibly fair use, depending on the previous other two.
The vast majority of faculty that I work with, when they're looking to reuse images, I'll be frank, they're going to Google and doing an image search and pulling those. So we talk about, how do they investigate whether or not those are Creative Commons works? How to do a Creative Commons search? But the big thing I emphasize is, start tracking those permissions from day one, because even if you can remember the search terms you use, it doesn't mean that image that you found is still going to be available.
So we have a cool little spreadsheet that we use now, and it's actually based off the spreadsheet that my publisher gave me when I wrote a book to track permissions. And it basically says, what is the title of the item? And I matched that up to what's in the book. Where did you find it at? What's the URL? Who is listed as the author? So kind of tracking all that information. If it's Creative Commons, what is the license? Did you obtain permission? What is the name of that file that has permissions? So that's one of the things we have in our opening conversation, is let me pull up this permission spreadsheet and show you what it looks like, and that we expect you to be tracking your own permissions. If they have questions, "I'm not certain who's the rights holder," or "How do I reach out?" Then I'm happy to work with them to give them templates for asking permissions and what does that process look like.
But here, at least at Miami University, and most institutions I know, they are responsible for tracking the use of all third-party works, and then where applicable, getting those permissions if we have to make a fair use determination, I do do that on behalf of Miami University because we are publishing it, and therefore we could be taking on the liability. I think maybe twice I've done that, so far. It's a pretty rare occurrence.
Jessica: We have a request as well in there. If you have an example of the spreadsheet for tracking permissions, if we would be able to share that.
Carla: Yeah. I'm still open into questions, but I'm going to go ahead and start pulling that up right now so I can send it to Karen as soon as we're done.
Jessica: Are there any further questions? Questions or thoughts or reactions, or anything on this topic?
Sara Davidson Squibb: I'm just curious how many projects you're typically tracking at any one time.
Carla: Usually it's one, just because, again, I'm a one-woman show. So I manage our affordable learning programs across campus. For the past two years, I've been the interim head of my department. I have my copyright librarian responsibilities. I work with office of general counsel on copyright issues on campus. I can't handle any more than one at once, depending on the size. We've had some smaller projects that are one that's gotten done in a few months because they pretty much already had everything written. It was kind of a nice break to me to have the rest of the year to kind of focus on other things and not worry about project management. I had another one that took about a year and a half because of some things they had going on. So it did overlap a little bit with another project, but it was enough that I could manage it and have that talk with my boss like, "Hey, I might not be doing as much work in this area because I'm supporting two projects at this time."
Sara Davidson Squibb: Thanks.
Jessica: Another comment in the chat from Linda. Linda uses a letter template offered to the authors as a tool, but charges them with getting tracking and documenting permissions. Then she asks the authors to sign a statement that they have taken care of this. And Karen points out that there is a publishing toolkit that has more permission spreadsheet templates. And Evangeline says, "This was incredibly useful. I feel better prepared to tackle talking about," and potentially putting together an MOU for her project. So that's great to hear. Fantastic.
Carla: I'm so glad to hear that. And again, there's definitely institutions that do that. I kind of want the document with everything in it, highlighting permissions, but there are some institutions that just have the person sign off saying, I've gotten permission for everything, and that's that. There's no right or wrong way. It's whatever your institution decides is best. And Karen, thank you for pointing out those spreadsheets and resources that are available as well.
Jessica: Fantastic. Well, let's do one more call for questions. Any final questions as we are wrapping up here today? All right. In which case, thank you very much, Carla, for joining us and for presenting on this topic today. I think this was extremely practical, but also I think for many of us, reassuring that it's not an overwhelming thing to do, that it's absolutely manageable and worth taking the time to do.
So thank you all for joining us. I'm going to drop some more links in the chat again, just as a reminder, the Padlet for you to follow up with things that you would like faculty members to know on this topic, and our Linktree so you can get back to the rest of our resources and follow up on this if you want to refer back to it. There's a Linktree. Thanks again for joining us. Thanks again, Carla. And we will see you next week.
Carla: Thanks everybody.
Jessica: Thanks everyone.
END OF VIDEO
Chat Transcript
00:15:43 Meredith Tummeti: I often hear my chickens defeating the
00:15:44 Carla Myers: I have 23 cats and kittens right now..I foster and it's kitten season. Almost all the kitties are napping right now.
00:15:50 Karen Lauritsen: Reacted to "I have 23 cats and k..." with ๐ฒ
00:16:00 Jenni Breems: My black lab is like my children. Social, always hungry, and sometimes obedient.
00:16:04 Emera Bridger Wilson: Reacted to "I have 23 cats and k..." with ๐ฏ
00:16:09 Carla Myers: Reacted to "My black lab is like..." with ๐
00:16:13 Morgan Briles: I have one cat and he likes to need my attention when Iโm in a meeting
00:16:16 Lindsey Skaggs: Reacted to "I have one cat and h..." with ๐ป
00:16:21 Karen Lauritsen: Replying to "I often hear my chic..." I want to know how this sentence ends!
00:16:24 Jeanne Pavy: My very mixed breed dog is goofy and extremely lovable.
00:16:26 Katy Smith: 2 rescue dogs (one old sweetie one younger) both with issues and a cat who thinks she's a dog.
00:16:51 Meredith Tummeti: Replying to "I often hear my chic..." the gate on the porch, so they can stay dry! I have to jump up and shoo them away. ๐ And I am Meredith in Washington state.
00:17:06 Amelia Brister: 3 dogs: 2 Maltese and 1 yorkie
00:17:07 Karen Lauritsen: Reacted to "the gate on the porc..." with ๐
00:17:09 Lindsey Skaggs: 3 tortie cats ๐
00:17:13 Sara Davidson Squibb: Brindle boxer currently at doggy day care while Iโm at work. Likes attention.
00:17:17 Meredith Tummeti: Replying to "I have 23 cats and k..." I foster cats too!
00:17:23 Lindsey Skaggs: Reacted to "I have 23 cats and k..." with ๐ป
00:17:49 Carla Myers: Reacted to "I foster cats too!" with โค๏ธ
00:18:33 Jessica McClean (she/her): Padlet for questions: https://padlet.com/alarsonoer/pub101-z1d7xlq5amzizljf Linktree to go to all the links: https://linktr.ee/pub101
00:18:41 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "Padlet for questions..." with ๐
00:24:05 Karen Lauritsen: Hereโs the MOU info in our Pub101 curriculum, that complements what Carla is talking about: https://canvas.umn.edu/courses/377173/pages/author-agreements-mous-and-contracts
00:24:29 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "Hereโs the MOU info ..." with ๐
00:28:34 Karen Lauritsen: Ugh
00:37:53 Karen Lauritsen: ^ Examples to swipe are at the link above
00:37:59 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "^ Examples to swipe ..." with โค๏ธ
00:42:27 Evangeline Reid: Replying to "^ Examples to swipe ..."
I had to join late. Could you reshare the link?
00:42:44 Jessica McClean (she/her): Padlet for questions: https://padlet.com/alarsonoer/pub101-z1d7xlq5amzizljf
00:42:56 Karen Lauritsen: Replying to "^ Examples to swipe ..."
https://canvas.umn.edu/courses/377173/pages/author-agreements-mous-and-contracts
00:44:55 Evangeline Reid: Replying to "^ Examples to swipe ..." Thank you!
00:45:15 Karen Lauritsen: Carla, do you have thoughts on how, as more faculty authors use AI, you may think about that and its impact on MOUs? And/or copyright issuesโฆ
00:48:17 Karen Lauritsen: Thank you! If anyone would like to keep talking about AI and OER Publishing, weโre hosting an informal community conversation on Monday: https://umn.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEvdOyoqTwrH9fFgt4RbCwBg9q0KUbEpfp5#/registration
00:49:29 Karen Lauritsen: Someone mentioned in Padlet that their experiences with MOUs have been intimidating in the past. Do you have thoughts on why that is true for some of us? How is it more an agreement than a legal doc?
00:49:40 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "Someone mentioned in..." with ๐ค
00:50:11 Karen Lauritsen: Iโll stop now ๐
00:50:16 Evangeline Reid: On my campus, I hear push back that there isn't a need to have a formal document for OER publishing because we trust our faculty. It's seen as unnecessary work and perhaps even aggressive. Any suggestions for pushing back against this?
00:50:44 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "On my campus, I hear..." with ๐ฎ
00:52:47 Sara Davidson Squibb: Replying to "On my campus, I hear..." While this is about tough conversations, I could see an MOU being kind because it provides clarity. https://brenebrown.com/articles/2018/10/15/clear-is-kind-unclear-is-unkind/
00:52:57 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "While this is about ..." with ๐ฏ
00:52:58 Evangeline Reid: Reacted to "While this is about ..." with ๐ฏ
00:53:09 Karen Lauritsen: Reacted to "While this is about ..." with ๐ฏ
00:55:05 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "Thank you! If anyone..." with โค๏ธ
00:56:00 Sara Davidson Squibb: This is getting in the weeds but are authors typically asked to deal with permissions in MOUs for OER creation? To what extent do you provide guidance in this area even if authors take the lead?
00:58:57 Jenni Breems: Could you share an example of the spreadsheet for tracking permissions?
00:59:52 Linda Miles: I have a letter template that I offer to authors as a tool, but charge them with getting, tracking, and documenting permissions. Then I ask the authors to sign a statement that they have taken care of this.
01:00:58 Evangeline Reid: This was incredibly useful. I feel better prepared to tackle talking about and potentially putting together a MOU for our projects.
01:01:04 Karen Lauritsen: Our Publishing Toolkit links to permissions spreadsheet templates: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KOSrGS8-y70_MJhIcCj2CIxtyWaJVwkfmqssLwPwpn4/edit#
01:01:40 Karen Lauritsen: Our Publishing Advisory Group is working on updating the toolkit, too. Look for it at the end of the year!
01:01:47 Evangeline Reid: Reacted to "Our Publishing Toolk..." with โค๏ธ
01:01:50 Evangeline Reid: Reacted to "Our Publishing Advis..." with ๐
01:02:33 Jeanne Kambara: Thank you Carla!!
01:02:34 Karen Lauritsen: Thank you Carla and Jessica!
01:02:36 Katy Smith: Thank you! I am behind in the course but will hopefully be catching up in the next two weeks.
01:02:41 Karen Lauritsen: Reacted to "Thank you! I am b..." with ๐
01:02:41 Jeanne Pavy: Thank you, super helpful!
01:02:42 Yasemin Onder: Thank you
01:02:42 Sara Davidson Squibb: ๐ thank you!
01:02:45 Robin Miller: Thank you, Carla. This was very helpful!!
01:02:46 Jessica McClean (she/her): Padlet for questions: https://padlet.com/alarsonoer/pub101-z1d7xlq5amzizljf
01:02:47 Debra Luken: Thank you! Very informative.
01:02:48 Jenni Breems: thank you
01:02:49 Roxanna Palmer: Yay thank you, another awesome session!
01:02:56 Jessica McClean (she/her): Linktree to go to all the links: https://linktr.ee/pub101
01:03:05 Meredith Tummeti: thank you!
00:15:44 Carla Myers: I have 23 cats and kittens right now..I foster and it's kitten season. Almost all the kitties are napping right now.
00:15:50 Karen Lauritsen: Reacted to "I have 23 cats and k..." with ๐ฒ
00:16:00 Jenni Breems: My black lab is like my children. Social, always hungry, and sometimes obedient.
00:16:04 Emera Bridger Wilson: Reacted to "I have 23 cats and k..." with ๐ฏ
00:16:09 Carla Myers: Reacted to "My black lab is like..." with ๐
00:16:13 Morgan Briles: I have one cat and he likes to need my attention when Iโm in a meeting
00:16:16 Lindsey Skaggs: Reacted to "I have one cat and h..." with ๐ป
00:16:21 Karen Lauritsen: Replying to "I often hear my chic..." I want to know how this sentence ends!
00:16:24 Jeanne Pavy: My very mixed breed dog is goofy and extremely lovable.
00:16:26 Katy Smith: 2 rescue dogs (one old sweetie one younger) both with issues and a cat who thinks she's a dog.
00:16:51 Meredith Tummeti: Replying to "I often hear my chic..." the gate on the porch, so they can stay dry! I have to jump up and shoo them away. ๐ And I am Meredith in Washington state.
00:17:06 Amelia Brister: 3 dogs: 2 Maltese and 1 yorkie
00:17:07 Karen Lauritsen: Reacted to "the gate on the porc..." with ๐
00:17:09 Lindsey Skaggs: 3 tortie cats ๐
00:17:13 Sara Davidson Squibb: Brindle boxer currently at doggy day care while Iโm at work. Likes attention.
00:17:17 Meredith Tummeti: Replying to "I have 23 cats and k..." I foster cats too!
00:17:23 Lindsey Skaggs: Reacted to "I have 23 cats and k..." with ๐ป
00:17:49 Carla Myers: Reacted to "I foster cats too!" with โค๏ธ
00:18:33 Jessica McClean (she/her): Padlet for questions: https://padlet.com/alarsonoer/pub101-z1d7xlq5amzizljf Linktree to go to all the links: https://linktr.ee/pub101
00:18:41 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "Padlet for questions..." with ๐
00:24:05 Karen Lauritsen: Hereโs the MOU info in our Pub101 curriculum, that complements what Carla is talking about: https://canvas.umn.edu/courses/377173/pages/author-agreements-mous-and-contracts
00:24:29 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "Hereโs the MOU info ..." with ๐
00:28:34 Karen Lauritsen: Ugh
00:37:53 Karen Lauritsen: ^ Examples to swipe are at the link above
00:37:59 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "^ Examples to swipe ..." with โค๏ธ
00:42:27 Evangeline Reid: Replying to "^ Examples to swipe ..."
I had to join late. Could you reshare the link?
00:42:44 Jessica McClean (she/her): Padlet for questions: https://padlet.com/alarsonoer/pub101-z1d7xlq5amzizljf
00:42:56 Karen Lauritsen: Replying to "^ Examples to swipe ..."
https://canvas.umn.edu/courses/377173/pages/author-agreements-mous-and-contracts
00:44:55 Evangeline Reid: Replying to "^ Examples to swipe ..." Thank you!
00:45:15 Karen Lauritsen: Carla, do you have thoughts on how, as more faculty authors use AI, you may think about that and its impact on MOUs? And/or copyright issuesโฆ
00:48:17 Karen Lauritsen: Thank you! If anyone would like to keep talking about AI and OER Publishing, weโre hosting an informal community conversation on Monday: https://umn.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEvdOyoqTwrH9fFgt4RbCwBg9q0KUbEpfp5#/registration
00:49:29 Karen Lauritsen: Someone mentioned in Padlet that their experiences with MOUs have been intimidating in the past. Do you have thoughts on why that is true for some of us? How is it more an agreement than a legal doc?
00:49:40 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "Someone mentioned in..." with ๐ค
00:50:11 Karen Lauritsen: Iโll stop now ๐
00:50:16 Evangeline Reid: On my campus, I hear push back that there isn't a need to have a formal document for OER publishing because we trust our faculty. It's seen as unnecessary work and perhaps even aggressive. Any suggestions for pushing back against this?
00:50:44 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "On my campus, I hear..." with ๐ฎ
00:52:47 Sara Davidson Squibb: Replying to "On my campus, I hear..." While this is about tough conversations, I could see an MOU being kind because it provides clarity. https://brenebrown.com/articles/2018/10/15/clear-is-kind-unclear-is-unkind/
00:52:57 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "While this is about ..." with ๐ฏ
00:52:58 Evangeline Reid: Reacted to "While this is about ..." with ๐ฏ
00:53:09 Karen Lauritsen: Reacted to "While this is about ..." with ๐ฏ
00:55:05 Roxanna Palmer: Reacted to "Thank you! If anyone..." with โค๏ธ
00:56:00 Sara Davidson Squibb: This is getting in the weeds but are authors typically asked to deal with permissions in MOUs for OER creation? To what extent do you provide guidance in this area even if authors take the lead?
00:58:57 Jenni Breems: Could you share an example of the spreadsheet for tracking permissions?
00:59:52 Linda Miles: I have a letter template that I offer to authors as a tool, but charge them with getting, tracking, and documenting permissions. Then I ask the authors to sign a statement that they have taken care of this.
01:00:58 Evangeline Reid: This was incredibly useful. I feel better prepared to tackle talking about and potentially putting together a MOU for our projects.
01:01:04 Karen Lauritsen: Our Publishing Toolkit links to permissions spreadsheet templates: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KOSrGS8-y70_MJhIcCj2CIxtyWaJVwkfmqssLwPwpn4/edit#
01:01:40 Karen Lauritsen: Our Publishing Advisory Group is working on updating the toolkit, too. Look for it at the end of the year!
01:01:47 Evangeline Reid: Reacted to "Our Publishing Toolk..." with โค๏ธ
01:01:50 Evangeline Reid: Reacted to "Our Publishing Advis..." with ๐
01:02:33 Jeanne Kambara: Thank you Carla!!
01:02:34 Karen Lauritsen: Thank you Carla and Jessica!
01:02:36 Katy Smith: Thank you! I am behind in the course but will hopefully be catching up in the next two weeks.
01:02:41 Karen Lauritsen: Reacted to "Thank you! I am b..." with ๐
01:02:41 Jeanne Pavy: Thank you, super helpful!
01:02:42 Yasemin Onder: Thank you
01:02:42 Sara Davidson Squibb: ๐ thank you!
01:02:45 Robin Miller: Thank you, Carla. This was very helpful!!
01:02:46 Jessica McClean (she/her): Padlet for questions: https://padlet.com/alarsonoer/pub101-z1d7xlq5amzizljf
01:02:47 Debra Luken: Thank you! Very informative.
01:02:48 Jenni Breems: thank you
01:02:49 Roxanna Palmer: Yay thank you, another awesome session!
01:02:56 Jessica McClean (she/her): Linktree to go to all the links: https://linktr.ee/pub101
01:03:05 Meredith Tummeti: thank you!
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