Another Educause gem today, “Faculty and Administrators Collaborating for E-Learning Courseware .” It mirrors a lot of what the eteam worked on this summer — incentives and funding, misconceptions. But it also hits hard at ownership and usage rights. The eteam didn’t spell out a clear recommendations in those areas, but this article gives 3 paths to take….
Reading the article, I see why ownership and usage rights aren’t spelled out as clearly here — we’re not a research institution. We don’t have to worry about inventions and patents — where large Universities have offices devoted to the area. Prior to web-based teaching and learning, the question of ownership of coursework hasn’t needed to be addressed. But this new medium brings with it new tangles.
The legal precedents are surprising
— “the lecturer owns his oral lectures” 1825
— “the lecturer owns his lectures whether performed for public or private university” 1887
— “ownership of lectures extends to nonfaculty” 1929
The 3 models for collaborative agreements were
1. traditional faculty-owns-the-copyright :: can be a disincentive to doing elearning
2. university-owns-the-copyright or work-for-hire :: typically an overload situation, gets messy when preexisting work is incorporated
3. collaborative ownership :: customized agreement for the players involved, harder but better in the long run
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