Learning Management Systems and Compliance with the TEACH (Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization) Act of 2002

Several years ago, I conducted research into compliance of the TEACH Act by Pac-10 universities as partial completion of my Masters degree in Technology at Arizona State University.

In doing so, I discovered that universities were attempting to make efforts to be in compliance even though in some cases fair use could be argued.

In order to be in compliance with TEACH, there are several requirements that must be met for faculty, the university, staff and the technology department.

With particular emphasis on distance education and classroom management systems, those colleges who had a home brewed or proprietary management system, took effort in creating a system where students could view but not store information on their personal systems.

In other words, students could view documents and video but not download these to their personal computers.

However, those universities that used tools such as Blackboard, for example, were not in compliance with the TEACH act dependent on whether the instructors attached documents students could download and length of time materials were available.

Why? One example was a PDF created by an instructor that included content from a book. Another example was a video that could be downloaded by students. While the material was restricted to the use only by students, the material could be shared.

Now, the one greatest issue was maybe not Blackboard itself, but the configuration settings by administrators. In some cases, students were allowed access to the course years after completion of the semester. The materials were still present on the server and this could be a violation of the requirement for a "reasonable" amount of time for use.

That being said, SCORM compliant content within a Learning Management System, is really the answer.

With Rapid e-Learning tools such as Articulate Studio, instructors can quickly convert a PowerPoint presentation into an interactive learning environment that cannot be downloaded to any personal computer.

Through a Learning Management System, compliance of the TEACH Act can be reached by converting materials into SCORM compliant output that can be viewed but not downloaded.

Now, placing the Articulate Output on a website may seem reasonable to some, but unless this is password protected, and only available to enrolled students, this would not be compliant with the TEACH Act.

One might also argue that since the output by Articulate is consistent, someone who has minimal technical knowledge could download portions of the material (such as the xml files and swf files) and reuse the content if not placed within a Learning Management System.

For more information about the TEACH Act, please visit the LOC website.

Additionally, if you are interested in reading about Compliance with the TEACH Act by PAC 10 universities, a copy of the Applied Project can be found in the library at Arizona State University.

Running an Engage or Presenter video as a Facebook App

This was completed several months ago.
All I did to create a Facebook application was to basically link to the website containing the Presenter file.


http://apps.facebook.com/articulatedemo/