Re: online course copyright question

On 23 Aug 1999, Melissa Belvadi <silvest[_at_]maryville.edu> wrote:
>
> The small private university where I work includes a clause in the
> faculty handbook (which is part of our employment contract) which
> gives copyright ownership to the Univ, not to the faculty.
>
> We are now looking at putting entire courses online. My question is
> this:
>
> If a faculty member puts the entire fulltext of, for instance, her
> Biology 101 course online, which may include lengthy presentations
> which are her standard script for lectures she has been giving for
> this course for years standing in a classroom, am I right in thinking
> she loses the right to transfer that content to another university,
> should she accept a job teaching Biology 101 elsewhere that also
> offered the technology for online courses?
>
> Would she also lose a "performance right" to even use that same content
> in a regular classroom? Would she be able to use some of them word-for
> word? For instance, if a typical course is 20 weeks x 3 classes per
> week x 50 minute lectures each, could she use at least some of those
> 50-minute lectures in their entirety at the other university?
>
> If the answer to both these questions is that the faculty has lost
> *all* control over the specific expression of ideas which are her
> standard "spiel" for teaching this topic, is there anything she could
> do ahead of creating the online course to prevent this from occuring,
> e.g. typing in the content on her home pc and somehow registering her
> content prior to giving it to the first univ. for online use?

I think the answer to both questions may be yes if your college wishes to insist on exclusivity. It may be unable to keep a faculty member from earning a living, but it would very likely be able to keep that instructor from earning anyting from a new video that appears to compete.

I would also be concerned about the use of my name and image. The college may do a rotten job of production; taping sessions may catch one on a bad day; course information may become out of date, obsolete, and undesirable.

Many academics would not be eager to be associated with mail-order courses.

I think college instructors may now need entertainment lawyers ...

Albert Henderson
Editor, PUBLISHING RESEARCH QUARTERLY
<70244.1532[_at_]compuserve.com> Received on Tue Aug 24 1999 - 20:52:13 GMT