Identify areas where additional information resources are needed to provide adequate decision-making assistance for the issues identified above. Psychology Prof. James L. Hilton will lead University efforts to examine, coordinate and develop policy and use as they apply to all forms of intellectual property, from paper textbooks to CD-ROMs to online courses. The task force found that there is a growing need for advice and decision-making support for questions in these areas. It also discovered considerable variation in interpretation of existing law and policy, and uncertainty about the University's position related to these areas. Hilton, who is an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, professor of psychology, faculty associate at the Research Center for Group Dynamics and undergraduate chair in the Department of Psychology, became interested in media rights issues when he encountered difficulties in developing a digital library for the Department of Psychology.
Information is what universities have always been about, creating and transporting it to students.
What we really must now address is how our policies and practices mesh with a world outside the University that is changing dramatically. There, the issue is the commodification of information, with information in its many forms being seen as having or potentially having economic value. Our mission is to create and liberate information. We now have to determine how we are going to navigate this transformation. I think it is terribly exciting.