Students' consent to open, publish, or show work
Your project - requesting your consent for future use scenarios
This document is intended for students, including groups, in this case on MyPortfolio. It helps you choose between four alternative scenarios for future use of your work: 'open', 'publish', 'show', and 'private'.
First we try to anticipate and answer your questions, then we offer checklists for the scenarios. If you have questions, please contact your tutor.
On this page:
Background - why we hope you'll make your work available
Students' work is often so interesting to other UCL academics, professional staff and students that we receive frequent requests to share examples. Since as students you own your work, we're seeking your consent to make your work available in the alternative ways below.
The idea is that you choose one of the alternatives below, and include a statement of your terms of us on the front page of your work. For the reasons below, we hope you will choose a Creative Commons licence. If you are already happy to do that, then you can skip to the 'What to do' section where you will find a checklist.
But there's no pressure, and if you are not happy with any of the alternatives you are welcome to choose Private - see checklist below.
Otherwise, read on - if you have questions please contact your tutor.
About the alternatives - questions and answers
Details | 'Open' (Creative Commons licensed) | 'Publish' | 'Show' |
---|---|---|---|
In a nutshell what does this mean? | You choose a Creative Commons licence allowing your work to be copied. You publish the work and (ideally) deposit a link to it and details about it in an open access repository. You reserve the copyright by default but your licence removes the need for anybody to contact you for permission. If you are in a group, you must make all decisions jointly. | You publish the work in such a way that it can be viewed by anyone via a web link. Since you reserve copyright by default, in most cases anybody who wanted to use your work would need to contact you for permission. If you are in a group, you must make all decisions jointly. | You consent for the work to be shown by designated UCL roles to others for educational purposes, at their discretion. You reserve the copyright. If you are in a group, you must make all decisions jointly. |
Is there a preference about which we choose? | Ideally this one - 'open' – since it gives the most leeway, the most reach, is the least complicated, and allows others to build on your work. It supports the Connected Curriculum principles of students' work being directed at an audience, and students connecting with the world beyond the institution. However, there's no pressure to do this and you are free to choose otherwise. | This alternative - 'publish' - will allow access only for the duration of UCL's data retention period – after which we are obliged to delete your work. In order for UCL to host your work indefinitely, you need to select the 'Open' alternative. | This alternative - 'show' - is harder to manage. There will be interested people outside the roles to which have given permission. The people in the roles may change, leading to unfamiliarity with the procedure, confusion and delays. The roles themselves may disappear over time, leaving nobody with permission to show your work as you intended. However, if this is all you are willing to offer, then we gratefully accept. |
How might this suit me? | If you want to make your work available in such a way that it can be discovered, shown, reused e.g. translated, and (depending on your group decision, if applicable) adapted. | If you consent for your work to be generally viewable but not for it to be copied or adapted. | If you consent for your work to be shown to selected others at the discretion of trusted designated UCL staff roles, but not for it to be copied, published or generally discoverable. |
How does my group make the work available? | Discoverability - the work needs to be published in such a way that people seeking open educational resources can find it. | Availability – the work needs to be released as a public access work. | Selective release – the work needs to be available to the UCL roles to whom you give permission to show it. |
You make the components of the work e.g. embedded materials from e.g. YouTube or SoundCloud released / available / discoverable under the same terms as the overall work. | |||
How is my group's consent recorded and viewed? | Include a block on your MyPortfolio group's About page containing a statement of the terms of release (see checklist). All group members need to be freely in agreement. | ||
'Open' (Creative Commons licensed) | 'Publish' | 'Show' | |
Who has access to the work? | General public access e.g. via link e.g. to MyPortfolio. | General public access via link e.g. to MyPortfolio. | Designated staff roles. |
What is the nature of the access? | View, show, use, and, depending on the terms of the licence, adapt and attribute the authors. | View-only; possible to link to the original work but not take or adapt. | View only; the designated staff can show your work to others at their discretion, but they cannot link to, take or adapt the work. |
How do we make the work available? | Ensure you are all in agreement about the terms of release. Based on the examples provided, include a statement of these terms of on the About page of the work, along with any licence and a suggested citation for your work which includes the authors. | ||
What if I don't want to include my name as author? | Simply remove your name from the list of authors, and (MyPortfolio) ensure the Members block is removed from the About Page. | ||
How do others find the work? | Web search; repository search. | Web search. | The work isn't generally discoverable. Designated departmental staff show it at their discretion. |
'Open' (Creative Commons licensed) | 'Publish' | 'Show' | |
How can I revoke consent? | First consider whether you want to actually withdraw the work (if you're in a group this is any individual group member's right, even if other group members disagree) or whether you want to simply to end your personal association the work. If the former then contact the department or repository to withdraw the work (and let any fellow group members know). If the latter then contact the department or repository to remove your name. Note that although you can take the work down, you can't easily control what has been done (and what might continue to be done) in relation to copies made while it was available. | ||
Contact the repository to withdraw the work. | Contact the department. | Contact the department. | |
How can the work's future existence be guaranteed? | If the work is hosted on UCL servers, then UCL will maintain its availability according to your group's statement of terms of release. You do need to ensure that you include this on the work's About page. | ||
Can I release just the part of the work which I authored? | Yes – it may help to host the work somewhere other people are permitted to download a copy. However, if you have group work please do release that too. | Yes, if your sole authorship isn't disputed, and if your own work can be hosted separately. | |
If a piece of group work can be decomposed into discrete elements which have a single author, the author may release their work separately, as long as it is hosted elsewhere. |
What to do
Checklist for 'Open'
- Check that the component parts of your work are themselves open and allowed to be licensed under the terms you choose.
- Make any other changes necessary for your to be happy for the work to be published and used by others.
- Choose a Creative Commons licence (on your MyPortfolio group About Page, go to Edit Content > General (in the sidebar) > Creative Commons License, or for more information refer to https://creativecommons.org/licenses & this UCL student's video tutorial https://youtu.be/zkcJDEWiGfQ.
- If you're in a group, every group member freely gives their consent.
- Publish the work. Check that you can access all parts without being logged in.
Include a statement about your terms of release in a textbox block on the About page. The statement includes: that the individual or all members of the group freely give their consent; that the work is published and open; the licence you chose; and a suggested citation for the work including the names of any group members who wish to be attributed, date, title, context of the work (i.e. Year [x] undergraduate project for the [y] module of the [z] programme) and the URL).
- Try to ensure that any externally-hosted embedded work (e.g. YouTube, SoundCloud) is hosted on an account where it will persist. Take your own copies.
- Which repository should you submit your work to so that it becomes discoverable (an important aspect of openness)? The retirement of the repository we used to recommend (Jorum) was announced in 2015, so we are currently looking for other opportunities. Meanwhile publishing the work will need to suffice.
Checklist for 'Publish'
- Check that the component parts of your work are themselves allowed to be published.
- Make any amendments necessary for your group to be happy for the work to be published.
- If you're in a group, every group member freely gives their consent.
- Publish the work. Check that you can access all parts without being logged in.
- Include a statement about your terms of release in a textbox block on the About page. The statement includes: that the individual or all members of the group freely give their consent; that the work is published; the licence reserving all rights;
Include a suggested citation for your work - the names of all group members who wish to be attributed, date, title, context of the work (i.e. Year [x] undergraduate project for the [y] module of the [z] programme) and the URL).
- Try to ensure that any embedded work (e.g. YouTube, SoundCloud) is hosted on an account where it will persist. Take your own copies.
Checklist for 'Show'
- Check that the component parts of your work are themselves allowed to be shown.
- Make any amendments necessary for your group to be happy for the work to be seen by others.
- If you're in a group, every group member freely gives their consent.
- Include a statement about your terms of release in a textbox block on the About page. The statement includes: that the individual or all members of the group freely give their consent; that the work can be shown.
- Include a suggested citation for your work - the names of all group members who wish to be attributed, date, title, context of the work (i.e. Year [x] undergraduate project for the [y] module of the [z] programme) and the URL).
- Try to ensure that any embedded work (e.g. YouTube, SoundCloud) is hosted on an account where it will persist. Take your own copies.
Checklist for 'Private'
- Include a statement in a textbox block on the About page to the effect that "I have..." or "Our group has decided to make this work private."
Students' consent to open, publish, or show work by UCL Digital Education is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/x/BQYzAw.