IPI's Open Knowledge Platform Project
Intellectual Property Institute (IPI) is working on the project Open Knowledge Platform (the Project), aiming to bring together an open science community in Slovenia. In addition to covering copyright and open licensing, its focus is to engage educators and cultural heritage institutions. For this Project, IPI has teamed up with project partners, who are bringing together different institutions involved in open science.
The two main project deliverables are 1) building strategy for setting up the platform / community focused on copyright and open licenses and 2) launch of initial activities and program of the Project.
Building a strategy
IPI contributed to a structured dialogue between the public interest stakeholders and policy makers. Initially IPI identified relevant policy makers and stakeholders. Policy makers in the field of copyright exceptions and limitations include: the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology in cooperation with the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office, the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Public Administration, and the Ministry of Justice.
IPI identified and organized public interest stakeholders from science and research sector and additionally stakeholders from the educational sector and cultural heritage institutions (CHIs) with the help of public interest institutions that are active in the area of organizing open science community stakeholders, whose partners list was complemented with stakeholders related to education and cultural heritage institutions. IPI plans to provide to the public interest stakeholders with a single, uniform point of reference to help them build a comprehensive learning community, as well as to help them address any potential issues, especially in regards to copyright and open licenses issues. IPI has already carried out certain activities, which concerned: a) training and learning, b) provision of information and advice regarding copyright and open licenses, and c) provision of information and best practices regarding the copyright amendment processes.
IPI also started to build a collection of relevant resources, the first being a collection of any and all relevant legislation changes with respect to copyright and copyright exceptions and limitations, since the first copyright act of the Republic of Slovenia with special focus on exceptions and limitations that are relevant for educators, researchers, and CHIs.
Activities and program of the Project
All the activities and program described below were organized by support of the Creative Commons copyright platform funding. Some of them receive additional support from other resources, and in cooperation with different partners.
Facilitating cooperation of all stakeholders in the implementation processes of the new Directive on copyright and related rights in the digital single market (DSM Directive) in Slovenia
Important part of the Project is the process of connecting different partners/stakeholders itself. A dialogue between stakeholders and policy makers on the implementation of the DSM Directive in the Slovenian Copyright Act took place online, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In March, the Ministry of Economic Development and Technology called upon the interested stakeholders to submit their written observations regarding the implementation of the DSM Directive by 30 April 2020. In total 46 written observations were submitted and published online on 5 June 2020, out of which, 27 have been prepared with the help of the IPI. Included in those 27 submissions, 12 were prepared on behalf of educators and educational institutions, 7 on behalf of libraries and other CHIs, 3 on behalf of TDM-performing institutions, and 5 on behalf of other stakeholders. Stakeholders, which IPI identified, are therefore already participating in the dialogue with policy makers. The expertise of the IPI is a foundation on which they build their advocacy for broad and clear copyright exceptions for TDM, education, preservation, and out of commerce works (OOCWs). Stakeholders were further invited to comment on the published submissions by 30 June 2020, yet the comments on the submissions have not been published up to this date.
Organising of an Open Knowledge Day, various workshops and webinars
On 20 January 2021, Intellectual Property Institute traditionally organized the third “Open Knowledge Day 2021” with support of the Creative Commons copyright platform funding, and in cooperation with the institute Today is a new day. This year, the Open Knowledge Day focused on the new DSM Directive. The event was opened by dr. Maja Bogataj Jančič (IPI), who emphasized that open culture, open science, open education, open hardware and software and open data are the building blocks of open knowledge and, as such, the building blocks of an open society. She then briefly presented the procedures for implementing the DSM Directive in selected EU Member States where implementation procedures are already under way.
Following a short introduction, in the first part of the event, the lecturers presented exceptions and limitations for education, the exception for research or data analytics and exceptions for libraries. All of them called for implementation of broad exceptions, which would enable educators, researchers and librarians to work smoothly. The second part of the event addressed an Art. 17 of the DSM Directive, which imposes new obligations on online platforms in relation to content that users upload to the platforms.
In addition, IPI organised various workshops, e.g. Text and Data Mining, supported by the NGO Small Grant by the US Embassy in Slovenia, copyright exceptions for researchers, copyright exceptions for educators, etc.
The training activities described above provide knowledge and information to stakeholders that they use in their daily work. Consequently, stakeholders became more aware of the importance of clear and broad copyright exceptions and limitations, better informed, and more actively involved when the copyright amendment processes take place.
Setting up a resource page with information on copyright, copyright exceptions and limitations, open licences, etc. and a “hot line” on the questions
The resource page is being developed and will include, for example, the relevant current legislation with respect to copyright, any and all relevant legislation changes with respect to copyright and copyright exceptions and limitations, including the expected legislation changes, as well as detailed information on copyright exceptions and limitations that are relevant for educators, researchers, and CHIs on a national and EU level.
The website already includes Q&A section (in Slovene), where answers to the most common and pressing issues of the stakeholders from education are covered. The organization of this section was supported by Arnes which partnered by IPI in organization of the workshop for educators. All attendees of the workshop for educators, were invited to ask questions during the event, or to send them after-the-fact to info@ipi.si. IPI collected all of the answers, and prepared a Q&A collection, which is complemented by all the questions and answers that are traditionally collected by IPI at its events (e.g. lecture on authorship of professional and scientific publications, TDM Webinars etc.). One of the sections of Q&A is dedicated to questions concerning Open Licenses.s
Through all these activities, IPI seeks to empower stakeholders with the knowledge to be able to participate better in the copyright amendment processes. IPI will continue to build a collection of simple questions and answers in the hope that it will develop into specialized “hot-line” supported by organized funding from interested stakeholders whose purpose is to provide information and answers to even more complex questions .
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