Copyright

To successfully complete Copyright

READ this blog post.

DO and THINK about the information in the “Learn More About” activities.

LEARN by completing the Hands-On Activities.

Your total time commitment is about 50 minutes.

Introduction to Copyright

The term copyright refers to a legal right - granted by law, so it varies by country - given to the creator of an original work (written, audiovisual, software, etc.) to use and distribute it as they see fit. You can usually find copyright information printed inside books, on the back of DVD and CD cases, listed at the bottom of websites, and buried in the legalese of many End-User License Agreements. Copyright is very easy to get; all you have to do is create an original work! Copyright law says that once something is created, it is copyrighted. You can, however, register a work to set the record right as to who "owns" the work.

Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization that tries to make it easier to understand how original works can be used. Creative Commons offers licenses that explain clearly how the creator of a work wants to allow people to use it. Are they allowed to use it as it is? Can they make changes and then use it? Is commercial use allowed? All these answers can be found in the CC license.

You can use copyrighted material under Fair Use, which has four factors. These are not hard-and-fast rules, but Fair Use considers the purpose of the use (it should be educational or non-profit), the nature of the work being used (it should be published, and it should be more fact than fiction), how much of the work is being used (you shouldn't use the vital "heart of the work" and you shouldn't use too much of it), and your use of the material should not harm the market for it.

Public Domain is the term for material that is not copyrighted, whether it never had copyright or the copyright expired. Most works created by the United States government do not have copyright applied to them, and are therefore Public Domain. Copyright owners can choose to release their works to the Public Domain, or allow their copyright to expire.

Learn More About Copyright (20 minutes)

1. Read TCC Library's Copyright LibGuide (a big thank you to Ruth Shumate and Bethany Wright for creating this!) (10 minutes)

2. Read the Creative Commons "About" page to learn more about the organization. (10 minutes)

Hands-On Activities (20 minutes)

1. Think of an original work you might create (a song, short story, photograph, website, piece of software, etc.). Then visit the Creative Commons Licenses page to read about what each license allows. Which one would you want to apply to your work? Why? (10 minutes)

2. Visit flickr. Do a search for a photo subject that interests you. At the top of the page of results, click where it says "License: Any License." Choose "Creative Commons only." All these images should have CC licenses of some kind applied to them. Click on an image in your results. Under the "Taken on" date, there is a message about the copyright that should be linked to a page from Creative Commons. Read about the license applied to the image you chose. What are you allowed to do with it? What aren't you allowed to do? (10 minutes)

When You're Done...

Don't forget to submit this form to get credit! You'll also be entered to win a prize drawing to take place at the end of the blog training.

Cybersecurity

To successfully complete Cybersecurity

READ this blog post.

DO and THINK about the information in the “Learn More About” activities.

LEARN by completing the Hands-On Activities.

Your total time commitment is about 40 minutes.

Introduction to Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity is keeping the information on computers and other devices safe, and it is especially important when dealing with personal information like names, contact information, SSNs, student IDs, birthdates, banking details, and more.

Common vulnerabilities in computer systems include backdoors (a method of bypassing authentication, so the user doesn’t have to log in to access the computer), eavesdropping (which, like human eavesdropping, involves listening in on a “conversation” between computers on a network), and exploits (which is when someone uses a piece of software to use a glitch in the computer to its advantage).

Another vulnerability – which you don’t need to know a lot about computer science to help avoid – is human error. Examples of mistakes like this include telling someone your password to a secure network, downloading something from a stranger’s flash drive onto a secure computer, or leaving yourself logged into a computer and walking away.

The consequences of having your cybersecurity breached depends on the scope and type of breach. If patrons’ personal information is stolen, you risk losing your patrons because they don’t trust you with their information anymore. (For example, Target’s business took a hit after they were hacked over Black Friday last year.) Sometimes the hackers steal money from the organization, in which case you suffer a financial loss.

Secure coding, firewalls, user account controls, and other means can be used to try to protect a network from infiltration, but the hardest methods of cybersecurity to enforce are those left up to the users (that’s us!). The network can be completely secured from the computer science standpoint, but all of that work does us no good if we give out our passwords and let anyone use it.

Learn More About Cybersecurity

1. Read Microsoft’s tips on creating a secure password. (5 minutes)

2. Read Lifehacker’s explanation of how to avoid being the victim of social engineering attacks. (15 minutes)

Hands-On Activities

1. Check this list of the 25 most common passwords of 2013 (reported by CBS). Are any of your passwords (work, personal email, bank account, etc.) on this list? If so, you should go change them. Like, right now. (10 minutes)

2. Pretend you are a hacker who wants to get into the computer system here at the library. What would you do to steal our information? Would you take a computer-based approach or a human-based approach? Why? Now think about what you can do as an employee of the library to stop people who might take your chosen approach. (10 minutes)

When You're Done...

Don't forget to submit this form to get credit! You'll also be entered to win a prize drawing to take place at the end of the blog training.

Net Neutrality

To successfully complete Net Neutrality

READ this blog post.

DO and THINK about the information in the “Learn More About” activities.

LEARN by completing the Hands-On Activities.

Your total time commitment is about 40 minutes.

Introduction to Net Neutrality

“Net neutrality” means Internet service providers and governments treating all online data equally, and not discriminating based on content, website of origin, platform, type of equipment being used, or mode of communication. The “Open Internet” is the Internet with net neutrality in place, with all content being treated equally. The controversy surrounded the concept of net neutrality is about whether it should be required by law.

People who are in favor of net neutrality argue that if companies are allowed to use tiered service models, they will eliminate their competition and control the internet in unacceptable ways (for example, they would be able to pick and choose the Google results you receive).

People who oppose net neutrality argue that companies don’t plan to block content from their users or cut down on their networks’ performance. (Comcast, however, has disproven this argument by doing exactly this.) They also argue that some level of data discrimination is required to provide higher quality service and should be preferred.

Learn More About Net Neutrality

1. Read about the Open Internet at FCC.gov. (10 minutes)

2. Watch Vi Hart’s video explaining lots of stuff I didn’t fit into the introduction above. (11:02)

Hands-On Activities

1. Make a list (written or mental) of the many things you use the internet for. If your Internet Service Provider (ISP) decided that one of these things (a specific website or type of content) was not going to get to you as quickly or as easily as it does now, how would that affect the way you use the internet? How would it affect the providers of the content being blocked/slowed?

2. If you feel strongly about net neutrality, file a public comment with the FCC and tell them what you think they should do.

When You're Done...
Don't forget to submit this form to get credit! You'll also be entered to win a prize drawing to take place at the end of the blog training.

Getting Started - 2nd Round of Learning

The 2nd round of Learning at Joint-Use Library launches on September 8th and concludes on October 13th. This time around, we will cover the following topics --

Week 1, Net Neutrality
Week 2, Cybersecurity
Week 3, Copyright / Creative Commons
Week 4, 3D printing
Week 5, Emerging Technologies
Week 6, Augmented Reality

Each learning session represents a total weekly time commitment of 30 – 60 minutes.

Any staff member who finishes all six learning sessions will receive a cool JUL Learning button. AND if you complete all six by October 27th, you will be eligible for a prize drawing.

A huge thank you to Alex and Bethany for their help!

It's a Wrap!

Thank you for participating in the first Joint-Use Library online learning program. We're going to do this again soon. Before we get started, we need your feedback to improve the program.

Please fill out an VBPL training evaluation form. Please use the following information to fill out the top portion of the evaluation form --

Start date = June 2, 2014
End date = July 14, 2014
Agency code = JUL
Training type = e-learning
Course Code = LIB543 E-Library

Thanks! Cindy

MOOC: Massive Open Online Courses

To successfully complete Massive Open Online Courses
READ this blog post.
DO and THINK about the information in the "Learn More About" activities.
LEARN by completing the Hands-On Activities.
Your total time commitment is about 50 minutes.

Introduction to Massive Open Online Courses
A Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) is an online class that is open to anyone who wishes to learn the subject matter.

Distance learning has a longer history than you may realize. In the 1890s, door-to-door salesman promoted correspondence courses, which were accomplished via mail. In 1922, New York University was using radio to broadcast courses for free; students could purchase textbooks, listen to the broadcasts, and mail exam answers to the school. In World War II, films were created as training tools to teach troops important technical knowledge about their equipment. In 1994, the first online seminar was taught by a University of Pennsylvania professor, relying heavily on email.

The MOOC arose from the OER (Online Educational Resources) movement to put more educational resources on the internet for greater accessibility. The first MOOC was offered in 2008 from Athabasca University and taught 25 tuition-paying students alongside 2200 students from the public who took the course for free. MOOCs have since exploded in popularity, with 2012 being called "the year of the MOOC" by the New York Times.

MOOCs have their pros and cons. While MOOCs mean that courses are available to anyone with internet access and a computer, this also means that students must have internet and a computer, plus the digital literacy to go with them. MOOCs would not be an effective way to learn computer skills, because those skills must be mastered before you can enroll in a MOOC. MOOCs can be offered in any language, using any online tools the participants prefer, and they break down the barriers typically presented by working with different institutions, or students participating in different time zones, geographical locations. A MOOC is a less formal environment than the typical classroom (even an online classroom) so it allows for more serendipitous learning from other participants. Instructors usually have to invest their own time, effort, and resources to create new content to set up a new MOOC, but it can boost enrollment to their own universities and colleges if the students taking a course for free enjoy their experience and/or want to pursue their studies further. Finally, MOOCs allow for wider access to education, especially to those who cannot afford a traditional college education, and encourages improvement of lifelong learning skills.

Learning More about Massive Open Online Courses

1. Read Massive Open Online Courses at Wikipedia (10 minutes)
2. Visit Educause's Massive Open Online Course. Watch the video, MOOC and Beyond (3:43 minutes), then explore some of resources. (25 minutes)

Hands-on Activities (10 minutes)

1. Browse the list of courses available at Coursera, a popular provider of MOOCs. What classes do you think might interest you? What do you think the benefits of taking these courses as MOOCs - as opposed to taking them as traditional college courses - might be? What might some of the downfalls be?
2. Use Coursera to search for MOOCs about arts. Compare the list of results to the list of arts classes available from TCC, as seen in the course catalog here (you will have to scroll down about 10 pages to find the Arts section). What are some of the differences you notice between the offered courses? Similarities?

Get credit!

After you have completed the activities in this post, please fill out this form.

TCC Databases

To successfully complete TCC Databases

READ this blog post.
DO and THINK about the information in the "Learn More About" activities.
LEARN by completing the Hands-On Activities. Your total time commitment is about 30 minutes.

Introduction to TCC Databases
Databases can be collections of a lot of different types of sources. The majority of TCC's nearly 200 databases are used for finding scholarly journal articles, but we also have searchable collections of images, videos, e-books, magazines, newspapers, dissertations, book reviews, primary sources, statistics, encyclopedias, and literature.

The TCC databases are listed multiple different ways to make it easier to find what you're looking for: by subject, alphabetically by database title, or by content type (or format).

Our most popular database is Academic Search Complete. It has mostly full-text access to a wide range of magazines, newspapers, and journals with a general scope (it is not a subject-specific database).

Most databases can be accessed on JUL computers without a login. Off campus, students must use their MyTCC login to access TCC databases. Some databases, however, like Occupational Outlook Handbook and Virginia View (both career information databases) are free to the public and do not require a login from any computer.

Learning More about TCC Databases (10 minutes)

1. Browse the subject list of databases. Hover your mouse over the title of a database to read its description. (5 minutes)
2. Read the Off Campus Access page. (5 minutes)

Hands-on Activities (20 minutes)

1. We also link to many of our databases on subject guides (sometimes referred to as LibGuides). Pick a few of the guides from this page and look under the Databases tab (if you choose the Careers guide, the tab is labelled "Research" instead of "Databases") to see which ones are linked for each subject. Consider why those databases were chosen for that guide. (10 minutes)
2. Visit Academic Search Complete and search for a topic that interests you. How many results did you get? Use the limiter options on the left side of the page to limit your results by date, or by type of resource, or some other criteria. How many results do you have now? Choose an article that looks interesting and click on its title. Look at the type of information you are shown about the article. Use the link on the right side of the page to email the article to yourself. (10 minutes)

Get credit!

After you have completed the activities in this post, please fill out this form.