The University of Aberdeen, School of Law hosted the annual BILETA conference on Tuesday 10th to Wednesday 11th April 2018.
The theme of this conference was: Digital Futures: places and people, technology and data. The conference attracted around 90 delegates from across the world.
There will be 2 special editions of journals building on the conference papers. The journals are the International Review of Law, Computers and Technology https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cirl20/current and the European Journal of Law and Technology http://ejlt.org/.
The relevant deadlines are as follows:
15 May – email to abbe.brown@abdn.ac.uk expressing interest in submitting a paper with details of a title and abstract. In the light of this, initial decisions will be made as to the topics which are to be addressed by each special edition.
30 August – deadline for submission of papers. These should be sent directly to abbe.brown@abdn.ac.uk, rather than using the journal online submission process. Other than that, please do look at the information for authors for each journal. The IRLCT prefers pieces of 10K, the EJLT is more flexible. These papers will then be sent out for peer review in the usual way, and final decisions on acceptance will be made in the light of journal space and the results of peer review.”
We had useful discussions at the conference about lecture recording and particularly in the light of the UCU strike. There is existing JISC guidance on this https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/recording-lectures-legal-considerations. JISC is open to review of this to address new legal developments. If you have any points you would suggest for inclusion, please do email abbe.brown@abdn.ac.uk (thanks to those of you who have already done so) or Andrew Cormack at JSIC andrew.cormack@jisc.ac.uk. This may also include links to any existing institutional policies which you consider to be positive examples.
It was also suggested that BILETA would develop its own policy on this, and engage specifically with issues arising out of the strike. A starting point is the collection of “Post-it” contributions left at the end of our second plenary on this issue. These are being written up and will be forwarded (and the photos of them) to a working group to take this forward. If you would like to be involved in this (or indeed, would just like to see the photos/notes) please do contact abbe.brown@abdn.ac.uk. A group with a variety of views, experiences and institutions would be excellent. This would develop a suggested policy for discussion by the BILETA Exec.
We think it would be helpful for each institutional member of BILETA to have a named contact person. If you would like to volunteer, please contact the BILETA Chair, Subhajit Basu on S.Basu@leeds.ac.uk
