Is the debate we are having about copyright and online streaming of course video (behind a password through the LMS) lagging behind new methods of teaching? How do we situate the discussion within the context of wanting our students to have full, unrestricted access to the assigned class videos source files so that they can create their own new works of scholarship via a mashup?

A video mashup project is one in which the student uses video editing software (like iMovie) to create a new piece of work by combing (or mashing up), existing video, new video, images, text and voice-over. In some student video projects a portion of the existing video that is utilized in the mashup is the same video that is assigned as part of the curriculum. The idea is to get students to work with the video, to create with the video, as opposed to acting as passive viewers. A video mashup project is an extension of a more traditional writing assignment, where students incorporate the curricular video into their term papers. You can see examples of student mashup projects for a sociology course I co-taught this past summer on the class YouTube channel.

There is a great discussion unfolding around UCLA's take-down of online video in response to complaints by the Association for Information and Media Equipment (AIME). Currently, the IHE article "Hitting Pause on Class Videos" that broke the story has 37 comments, capturing a lively and informative discussion.

Steve Worona's blog post offers some sound advice for institutions and some excellent links. One of those links is to a blog post by Kevin Smith, "Can we stream digital video - a thoughtful, balanced, and fact filled description of all the issues involved. The comments section for the IHE article also contains a link to a report, "Video and Higher Education Project: Options for the Future," available here, that is worth reading.

Some questions:

What would AIME's response be to schools wanting to provide students with digitized copies of curricular video for their iMovie projects?

What does the law say about enabling the production of video mashups as opposed to the online viewing of assigned videos?

How can we insure that we are pushing ahead in our efforts to promote active learning through course video and mashup projects?

Are we putting ourselves further at risk from groups like AIME if we provide our students the materials they need to create mashups?

Are mashups the next target?