COLLOQUY

THE QUESTION

RESPONSES

BACKGROUND

The growth of distance learning has many experts on intellectual property debating who owns on-line courses: the professors who create them, or the universities where the professors work? In some ways, the courses are like inventions, and universities typically share in the profits from patents on professors' work. But in other ways, on-line courses are like textbooks, and universities typically do not share in the profits from books their professors write. Many in academe believe that the importance of the issue extends beyond the financial question to issues of who controls the curriculum and who owns material created at a university. Who should be considered the owner of such courses and materials? Is the patent model or the textbook model appropriate? Or should some new model be developed?

For further background information, see this background story

• "Professors and Universities Anticipate Disputes Over the Earnings From Distance Learning," 6/5/98

10 RESPONSES (New 6/26)

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