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[lucys]

I am doing research for a paper on intellectual property rights as they apply to online instruction. I am interested in collecting stories from instructors who have had their online course shells given to others to teach. Were you notified that this would happen? How did it make you feel? Has this affected the type of information you post to the course? I will keep all information anonymous, but really need true stories of how instructors are responding to this development.

[giacomo]

The policy at my CC is to have one version of an online course with one person, usually a full-time faculty member, in charge of that course. I created two courses and adjunct faculty have repeatedly taught the course. I knew that this would happen and knew when I created the courses that they belonged to the college and to me personally. The people in charge of the courses were only upset by the fact that we were not paid anything extra to maintain the courses and answer questions by the people teaching them. The school now pays the equivalent of one credit hour per semester to those in charge of the course.

[lucys]

Thanks for your comments. I completed my article using an interview with a colleague. At my university course shells can be shared without the faculty member's knowledge. This can be done at any time, even when the faculty member may not be finished with the course, or the course is finished but has never been taught and perfected. My research shows, however, that this is not the norm.

[magistra]

Wow.  That does sound extreme.  Sorry I didn't reply in time, but my experience is in line -- I've heard that schools "own" the course and it can be taken from you, but I've never heard of this actually happening without the prof's consent (if only that he doesn't want to teach that course anymore).  I've been assured that it's extremely rare at my current school, and there are limits as to how long the material can be used, etc.  So in theory the university "owns" a course, but in practice it's unlikely to ever be an issue.