Illinois State on Cutting Edge with Copyright Project

Date: 11/06/06
Contact: Kathy Beal

Illinois State University wants its students to understand the rules and regulations regarding peer-to-peer file sharing and downloading, and the University is launching a nationally innovative program to provide that education.

The program is called the Digital Citizens Project, a combination of network monitoring, advising and educating, which is designed to help students avoid the potential penalties of violating copyright laws, while promoting legal sources for downloading music, videos and games. One of the project leaders, Cheryl Elzy, dean of Illinois State's Libraries, recently testified before Congress regarding illegal downloading and the University's unique program to combat the growing problem.

"The solution lies in education coupled with enforcement of existing laws and direct avenues to legal ways of getting the tunes, tracks, games and movies that are an integral part of today's student and faculty lives," Elzy said. Toward that goal, Elzy and the three other project leaders, Mark Walbert, associate vice president of Academic Information Technology, David Greenfield, director of Student Technology Support Services, and Warren Arbogast, president of Boulder Management Group and Milner's technology consultant, are working with the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, EDUCAUSE and the American Council on Education as well as a nationally recognized expert on cyber crime.

Elzy said the long-term goal of the Digital Citizens Project is to create a nationally recognized program that is cost-effective and replicable on other college campuses. As the University already offers technology orientation and educational programs for students, especially those new to campus, those programs were updated to include live student testimonies and artists speaking on the subject of piracy. The project will explore ads and public service announcements in student-targeted publications, on web sites, campus television and radio stations and beyond. An ethics module will eventually be added to the education venues.

Network engineers are testing commercial monitoring and enforcement software that will be managed and operated by campus personnel to track peer-to-peer file transfers via the campus network. The software is designed to stop downloading of copyrighted material while educating the user. The user will be directed to legal avenues for downloading the desired item.

The Digital Citizens Project will offer a menu of legal downloading services at reduced costs covering the spectrum of portable device options rather than supporting one make, model or manufacture. The legal downloading services will be called "Bird Trax," and students, faculty and staff may opt into this legal option for downloading. Bird Trax will not be financed by tuition or student fees, but there will be charges to participate. Participants will be rewarded and encouraged to use Bird Trax through a minimum of free downloads, reduced subscriptions and/or an array of vendor-related giveaways.

Illinois State will also capitalize on its nationally recognized College of Education and its K-12 on-site laboratory schools and professional development schools to develop and test a K-12 curriculum with some 50 teachable moments or learning modules to address cyber ethics as early as 3rd or 4th grade. A teacher could use the moments or modules when instructing students on how to create presentations or slides as well as many other point-of-use times.

Elzy said she hopes "Illinois State will serve as a consumer standard on the digital media scene, testing, reviewing and implementing new services as they emerge in the market while serving as a resource to higher education on the education side of the equation.