The Chronicle: Colloquy: Responses

COLLOQUY
THE QUESTION
RESPONSES
BACKGROUND

When professors create on-line courses, or materials for distance education, who owns the intellectual property? The professors or their institutions?

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"Background: I have developed an extensive collection of web courses supplemented by interactive JAVA applets and was one of the first in the country to..."

: -- Gregory D.Bothun, Professor of Physics, Univ. of Oregon (posted 6/26, 2:42 p.m., E.D.T.)

"Every time we have produced a satellite teleconference program which deals with distance learning in recent years,..."

: -- Bob Crook, Director of Satellite Services - Dallas County Community College District (posted 6/12, 3:40 p.m., E.D.T.)

"I am wondering whether there is a difference in the way policies affect the materials of tenured and tenure-track faculty versus adjunct faculty. One might theorize that..."

: -- Brendan McManus, Adjunct Lecturer in History (posted 6/8, 11:32 a.m., E.D.T.)

"We ought to differentiate between work that is essentially anonymous and work that is identified with the faculty member. If I contribute to a brochure, policy statement, or Web page for my school, that may be..."

: -- Paul Velleman, Assoc Prof, Cornell University (posted 6/4, 8:17 a.m., E.D.T.)

"Consider treating the intellectual property rights in online courses using the model used in film/television contracts, under which the writer/creator receives an initial payment followed by 'residuals': payments based on the use of the resulting product. For online courses, residuals could..."

: -- E.M.B.G. Hughes, Ph.D., HLE Communications (posted 6/4, 8:15 a.m., E.D.T.)

"The current debate focuses on ownership, seemingly because ownership equals control. Perhaps the better and more leveraged position would focus on..."

: -- David Green, Assistant Attorney General, University of Washington (posted 6/3, 4:57 p.m., E.D.T.)

"As I understand the question of ownership of textbooks written by academics, the University which is the home of the academic owns the work, but typically cedes the rights to..."

: -- Richard T. Hull, Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Buffalo (posted 6/3, 4:49 p.m., E.S.T.)

"Lectures given over compressed video, the Internet, on video tape, etc. are no different than..."

: -- D.P.Bingham, West Texas A&M University (posted 6/2, 5:02 p.m., E.D.T.)

"Interesting times, these. The face of education is in full transmogrification, what with all the new technologies. Fifty years ago, Harold Innis decried the standardization of education brought on by the use of textbooks in university courses. Now look what we've got..."

: -- Roger Albert, Instructor, North Island College (posted 6/1, 2:08 p.m., E.D.T.)

"Defining instruction as intellectual property could have a significant impact on how faculty approaches their teaching. While references to instruction as intellectual property have primarily been in the context of online instruction or other forms of mediated instruction the mode of instruction should not..."

: -- Ed Meyen, Professor University of Kansas (posted 6/1, 2:02 p.m., E.D.T.)