1. Panel on Copyright, Technology
and Culture
SCRIPT: Law and Transformation
University of Edinburgh
8 June 2012
Robin Rice, r.rice@ed.ac.uk
Data Librarian
EDINA

2. Overview
• Intro: my base at EDINA and Data Library
• Openness and academic culture
• Governments‟ role in promoting OA
• “Software is eating the world”
• “Is this the nerd economy?”
• Tech and the future of Higher Education
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3. EDINA at the University of Edinburgh
EDINA staff on its 15th birthday (January, 2010)
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4. Data Library service, Uni of Edinburgh
Helping
researchers:
• find data
• use data
• manage &
share data
• managing
Images by ChartsBin and
mkandlez on flickr
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5. Openness and academic culture (1)
• Despite enthusiasm of early adopters in
open scholarship, academic culture is
steeped in norms and slow to change.
• Academic rewards are not yet geared
towards openness.
Openness
by PSD
on flickr
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6. Openness and academic culture (2)
• Unexamined
relationship with
publishers (on
copyright, peer
review, price).
• Adoption of „open
scholarship‟ and
sharing practices are
dependent on
generational and
disciplinary effects
Copyright Symbols by MikeBlogs on flickr
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7. Governments‟ role in promoting OA
• Government action on open access can be
traced back to principle of public access to
publicly funded research.
• US government and funders (NIH, NSF) have
raised the bar internationally.
• National and local govt‟s are opening up their
own data, setting a good example.
• David Willetts‟ recent speech to the
Publishers Association have raised
expectations in the UK.
• The EC is demanding compliance with open
access for funded research projects.
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8. “Software is eating the world” (1)
“Six decades into the computer
revolution, four decades since the
invention of the microprocessor, and
two decades into the rise of the modern
Internet, all of the technology required
to transform industries through
software finally works and can be
widely delivered at global scale.”
-Marc Andreessen, co-founder Netscape,
in Wall Street Journal, August 2011
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9. “Is this the „Nerd Economy‟?” (1)
“The future of the
economy and
economic recovery lies
with the „nerds‟-
specifically, those
nerds that code. And
this is a good thing.
They are smart. There
has never been a
better time to be a
New Relic is giving away
these t-shirts with a free
nerdpreneur.”
trial of their software. - Patrick Moran, New Relic blog
post, April 2012
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10. Is this the „Nerd Economy‟? (2)
• “Coding is as hot as it‟s ever been and yet
we graduated more students with CSci
degrees in The Year of Our Orwell as we do
today”
• “Some of the most innovative companies on
the planet are starved for talent while at the
same time job prospects for new college
graduates are pretty bleak. What will it take
to resolve that paradox?”
-John Bischke, “They Ain‟t Making Any More of Them:
The Great Engineering Shortage of 2012”, Tech
Crunch, Apr. 2012
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11. Tech and the future of Higher Education (1)
1. The concept of „digital‟ will fade
2. There will be even more personalisation of
technology
3. The boundaries between formal research
and scholarship, formal education and
training will become increasingly blurred
4. The „added value‟ of face to face educational
experiences will start to break down (?!)
Sarah Porter, head of innovation at JISC, shares her view of
the future: “Seven predictions for our technology-enabled
universities.” JISC Inform, Issue 33 (2012)
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12. Tech and the future of Higher Education (2)
5. The digital environment will provide more
opportunities for institutions to provide an
enhanced and customised student
experience
6. More organisations will accredit chunks of
learning
7. Organisations will think about services, not
systems
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