Re: faculty coursework online

On Fri, 25 Feb 2000, Lyda Peters <lydap[_at_]aol.com> wrote:
>
> I am co-chairing a faculty committee on intellectual property rights.
> The committee has been established in our institution because, for
> the first time, we are offering a small number of courses on-line to
> students. Faculty are concerned that if they agree to teach courses
> on-line, much of the innovation, research, and curriculum developed
> will become the property of the College. The college, on the other
> hand, asked for advice from their lawyers and were told that this
> work does belong to the college under "work-for-hire" copyright law.
>
> Needless to say this does not provide any incentive for faculty to
> teach on-line. Because of the college's newness in this arena, I
> would like to pose the following questions:
>
> How should I frame the discussion between faculty and the college so
> that we can move towards some type of consensus which supports the
> rights of faculty?
>
> Do professors have any rights by law to "intellectual property" once
> they start to teach online? If yes, what rights?
>
> Which websites would be of most help in developing a policy on
> intellectual property?

I would like to suggest another way of framing the issue suggested by Ken Crews at Indiana University -- what policy would you like to have at your institution? What rights do you need? Copyright law won't get you where you want to go.

An examination of faculty and university interests discloses more complement than conflict.

Universities want:

1. Protection of their "brand," reputation, and institutional identity, so that faculty cannot use their institutional affiliation to popularize the competing educational product of new, for-profit enterprises;
2. Recovery of investments in online production facilities, release time, computer resources, etc. if courses are commercialized
3. Fair share of revenues from commercial opportunities, i.e. licenses.

Faculty want:

1. Freedom of authorship -- to publish, to share with others, or not as one chooses
2. The right to take one's works and use them elsewhere when one leaves an institution;
3. Fair share of commercial revenues
4. Compensation for extra work
5. A voice in both institutional policy and in commercial deals in which their work is involved

The issues isn't ownership. It's how to share rights and fashion policy. The recent Pew Symposium on Learning and Technology, "Who Owns Online Courses and Course Materials," made clear that neither copyright law nor intellectual property policy alone can solve the problems.

Here are my favorite materials, both of which were used at the Symposium.

Ownership of New Works at the University ... http://www.cetus.org/ownership.pdf

Ownership of Electronic Course Materials in Higher Education http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/html/erm99022.html

Regards

Terence P. McElwee, J.D.
Director
Technology Transfer & Corporate Research Marquette University
Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881
414.288.5329 (fax288.1578)
mcelweet[_at_]info.orsp.mu.edu Received on Thu Mar 02 2000 - 14:49:40 GMT