International Journal of Open Educational Resources Volume 2, Issue 1, Fall 2019/Winter 2020 | Page 99

Know Your Audience(s): Collaborating for Copyright Education
as the project has evolved, the team has
begun to employ humour as a component
of the narrative in each video’s
visual presentation, narration, or both.
This approach significantly enhances
the enjoyment and engagement level
of modules but runs the risk of creating
vague or possibly even incorrect interpretations
of nuanced and complex
aspects of the Canadian Copyright Act.
As a result, great care must be taken
with the scripting of each module, with
scripts and visual presentations subject
to multiple reviews by the core content
team. Modules were often reviewed by
the full team, as works-in-progress, up
to eight or 10 times. A conversational
or colloquial approach to the visual presentation
that emphasizes engagement
for audiences such as graduate students
and the broader public was invariably
chosen. While this approach may reduce
clarity, it was preferred over strict adherence
to academic or legal-sounding
narrative. Although a more academic
or legal sounding narrative would have
greater precision for audiences such as
academic staff or legal scholars, it can
sound “scripted” and unnatural in the
final product. This balance is difficult
to achieve on a module-by-module basis,
and demands discussion in forums,
where all members of the project team
can be present to flag issues and resolve
concerns.
Over time, the team developed
two approaches to balancing precision
and engagement. First, central or key
copyright topics with the broadest interest
(or multiple primary audiences)
were identified as “flagship” modules,
and these modules were used in novel
forms of visual presentation that received
in-depth review and revision.
For example, one module was created
using Powtoons animation, and another
module was created by filming puppets
in a university library. These novel
forms of presentation led to a second
approach, which was the incorporation
of team members with theatre or live
performance backgrounds to serve as a
counterbalance to more traditional, academic
approaches. The value of skills
contributed by students with theatre
backgrounds to the development of engaging
modules dramatically improved
engagement quality of the modules.
Increasing engagement by using
novel forms of visual representation has
a negative impact on the re-usability
of project content (the engagement vs.
re-usability axis of the OER triangle),
since the convention of making downloadable
slides for the module is often
broken with the use of different media.
The team has discussed possible alternatives
to address this concern, such as
creating a parallel set of slides or making
raw video and audio content available
for download, but the value and
effectiveness of these options has not
yet been assessed. In one case, such as
a Powtoons-based module on using images,
the project team has decided that
an updated version of the module will
re-focus on re-usability by replacing the
animated material with a more versatile
PowerPoint plus narration approach.
Achieving Inclusivity
In order for the project material to be
effective across multiple primary audi-
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