Dear All,
At present there is no certain way of telling, technically, where
the student is geographically located when s/he connects to the VLE.
To some extent internet addresses map onto geographic areas, but this
is easily defeated by "tunneling" where the receiving machine
presents to the VLE server as being at one network address (on-campus
and/or in one country) while actually being at another (off-campus
and/or in another country). Indeed most uk Universities provide
tunneling exactly so that members of the University using off-campus
machines can access resources that are normally only available on-
campus or to members of the University. It's best not to even think
about what happens to any material saved to the local disc in one
jurisdiction when the user travels to another.
There's an analogous problem with DVD discs which are area-coded by
their publishers. Nonetheless the Sony official retailer here in the
UK will ask you if you want the Sony DVD player you are buying
modified to play DVDs from all areas. There's a small charge for this
service and they assure me the work is done by an official Sony
service agency. I'm pretty sure Sony also own some of the film
companies whose area coding of discs they are charging for
circumventing.
Peter
On 5 Jun 2006, at 20:39, Wolfgang Greller wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> I agree largely with Leslie on that. We need to turn the tables
> here. If a publisher does not provide what the customer wants - we
> shall have no dealings with them. Find your resources elsewhere.
> They need to understand educational needs.
>
> Apart from the polemics, the BBC are opening their archives and use
> GIS restricting software for access. Don't know much more about
> this, but it may help you investigate.
>
> Cheers
> Wolfgang
>
>
>
> On 05/06/06, Leslie Carr <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Sometimes it
> is useful to go back to the rights associated with print
> materials.
>
> If one of my students came from a country that "Publisher A" did not
> wish to deal with, would I refuse him or her the right to buy the
> text book? If so, would it be my responsibility (as module tutor) or
> the bookshop's responsibility (as information provider) for enforcing
> this policy?
>
> I think not. Perhaps such material already exists (one thinks of the
> recent alarms of Homeland Security vs Enemy Students learning how to
> make biological weapons), but that concern is usually about the
> knowledge transfer, not the educational materials.
>
> Obviously, a VLE can be constructed so that it records the location,
> residency and ethnicity of all students who are registered for a
> module and could easily be programmed to disbar certain information
> products from users on any of these criteria. (At any moment I might
> have to say "EPrints can do that" :-)
>
> However, this would be exceedingly inconvenient to me as a tutor and
> would cause me to drop the use of any such products. (What do they
> think I am going to do? Find alternative versions for some students?
> In which case, everyone can use the alternatives!)
>
> So, I would say to the publishers from a purely pragmatic perspective
> (a) yes, the software can do it
> (b) no, the educators won't do it
>
> and that is before you get onto the moral case for denying students
> access to education on the basis of trading restrictions.
> --
> Les Carr
>
> On 5 Jun 2006, at 13:34, John Casey wrote:
>
> > Dear All
> >
> > I have a request for some help and advice about the technical
> > feasibility of blocking access to online materials via geographic
> > restrictions.
> >
> >
> > Before I go any further I should state that I don think this is a
> > good or desirable thing to do in the context of education. But this
> > is an issue which concerns publishers - the control of distribution
> > by territory. It is also something they have traditionally
> >
> > exercised in print and electronic materials and want to continue to
> > be able to do, it is a basic right under copyright law to be able
> > to exercise this control that has been around a long time.
> >
> >
> > What I am particularly interested in is if a UK institution offeres
> > courses to international students via a VLE and perhaps a VPN and
> > that perhaps one country amongst several that was providing
> > students was not a country that a certain publisher wanted to allow
> > their materials into. Is there a way that for a certain piece of
> > material that access could be blocked from that particular country?
> >
> >
> > Similarly is there a way a course in a VLE could be set up so that
> > it could be accessed by only certain countries? - this might be a
> > way of providing alternate access arrangements to different
> materials.
> >
> >
> > Obviously this scenario is a total pain, and not one I or, I am
> > sure, you would like to get into as an educational provider. The
> > reason I am asking is that some colleagues are currently involved
> > in tough legal negotiations with a group of publishers and these
> > issues are being raised by the publishers. What I need to know is
> > how easy or hard it would it be able to do this - this will help
> > the negotiators a great deal.
> >
> >
> > If you can help - sure we can discusss it on the lists that this is
> > being sent to and I am sure it might spark discussions about the
> > merits of open access and the wrongs of the current copyright
> > regime - but please also try to answer the questions as well so we
> > can help our colleagues.
> >
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > John
> > John Casey
> > Learning Materials Manager
> > TrustDR JISC Project Manager
> > UHI Millennium Institute
> > Room 145, Perth College, Perth, PH1 2NX,
> > Scotland
> > UK
> >
> > e-mail: [log in to unmask]
> > Tel: 01738 877213
> > Mob: 07796930031
> > Fax:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
>
> Dr Wolfgang Greller
> Head of e-Learning
> Alpen-Adria University
> Universitätsstrasse 65-67
> A-9020 Klagenfurt
> AUSTRIA
>
> e-mail: [log in to unmask]
> tel: +43 463 2700 9209
> fax: +43 463 2700 9299
> web: www.greller.net
> ---------------------------------------------------
--
Peter Nix, AHRC CentreCATH, School of Fine Art, History of Art &
Cultural Studies,
Old Mining Building, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/ http://www.leeds.ac.uk/fine_art/
Eml: [log in to unmask] Tel: 0113 343 2580 Fax: 0113 343 1628
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