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[pmarcoux]

Who owns the copyright to a course taught at a public institution of higher education? When I submit a new course to a curriculum committee do I give up copyright? What about course syllabuses? Can a college post syllabuses online to the public without a professor's permission?
I did a quick search online and was deluged with information about copyright issues when teaching a course. Any resources will be appreciated.

[zuzu_]

I think this depends on the college's intellectual property policy. My faculty union recently negotiated this issue. Short version: the course is co-owned. The long version is a whole bunch of legalese in our contract.

[carebearstare]

I'm with Zuzu. At some schools, anything you produce for the school belongs to the school, whereas at others you retain more rights. This would be a good thing to discuss with your chair, the head of your union (if you are unionized), or a dean.

It might also be that your syllabi are considered property of the school, but anything you produce--assignments, tests, etc.--are yours. This is how it was at the place where I last taught before my current job.

[glowdart]

Check your contract.  Our materials that we produce for non-online courses (regardless of whether they are hybrid or not) are ours, even if we put them up on the CMS.  Our *materials* on the fully on-line courses can be our copyright, but the school technically "owns" the course IF you were paid to produce the course.   (In other words, if someone else teaches the on-line course, your materials retain your copyright notations but you cannot prevent the other person who teaches the course from using your materials.  They cannot alter them, but they can use them.)

 

[skinnymargarita]

Who owns the copyright to a course taught at a public institution of higher education? When I submit a new course to a curriculum committee do I give up copyright? What about course syllabuses? Can a college post syllabuses online to the public without a professor's permission?
I did a quick search online and was deluged with information about copyright issues when teaching a course. Any resources will be appreciated.

I wrote an online course and in the contract it specifically stated that the materials would be the property of the college. In this case, I altered what I normally use so that I would infringe on their rights should I want to use my own materials.

[erikjensen]

I don't know about the legal issues, but my college paid me to develop the course, provided me with computers and other resources, and continues to pay me to teach the course. They are planning to archive course shells and I will certainly comply with their wishes.

[magistra]

I was told unofficially that it's co-owned at my school, but I can certainly use my own materials.  After three years it's mine.

[der_gadfly]

once you put ANYTHING up on the institutional computer system, it by default belongs also to the institution. They may retain it in perpetuity (as in archives) and pursuant to other legal contracts/agreements, may also use it without permission or further compensation at any time. The institution should have a over-paid lawyer compliance officer/college counsel who will should be able to, by virtue of their advanced doctorate in copyright law, be able to clarify exactly who owns what an how they may use it. (forgot where I was for a moment... sorry - ok, back to reality)

The creator typically also has the right to use and modify at any time, in any location, for as often as they want, the material. In other words, both parties retain certain legal rights.

Mark Twain once said something along the lines that "...even God cannot comprehend copyright law...".

[luvstowrite]

Our faculty union has it in the contract that the online course is faculty-owned if faculty-developed. Right now there is a huge push to develop online courses (to compete with a sister college down the road) so there are stipends available to create new courses. It gets better, the developer of the course is the only faculty member who can teach it, unless he/she gives permission to someone else. Talk about job security...

[bud04]

At my school, we own our syllabi. We place our copyright symbols on them.

[melba_frilkins]

Chime on those who say it depends on your contract.

I don't know exactly what documents you're handing over to the curriculum council. But I would guess those documents (forms?) more or less become property of the college. At my institution, the curriculum documents are a matter of public record. They also establish what the course in the catalog is--that becomes part of the institution and does not disappear when instructors come and go.

I've always felt like my syllabi are the most public documents that I create for my classes. They go on record each semester with the division office and copies get sent out on request (e.g., if a student is trying to transfer a class and the transfer institution wants more info).

For online classes, I believe my contract agreement is that the instructor always retains rights to his/her materials. You can do whatever you want with them, even at a different institution. However, the college sort of retains the right to use your materials as it sees fit, IF you developed the materials on campus time (which would not apply to part time faculty as they have no paid prep time, and it may be a gray area even for FT faculty, if you would be developing course materials on your own time.).

[sporosarcina]

In our school the terms were negotiated.  In class materials are the instructors' but they do have to submit a syllabus for public display (on the Dean's website).  Online materials (supplementals, online classes, posted slides, etc.) are a murkier issue.  New materials produced by the instructor are the property of the instructor unless specifically compensated for by the school (per mutual agreement).  Any use of online class materials is subject to right of first refusal from the author of the materials, but becomes the property of the college once compensated for. 

Non-online class, online materials are even murkier, I tend to avoid the whole mess by keeping my own materials in personal server space ($2/month is a bargain in the end) with heavy copyright disclaimers in the websites.  In the end I would think it would be the onus of the college to demonstrate that these types of materials were essential materials for the course (i.e. work for hire as an instructor) rather than personal property.

It really depends on how diabolical your admins are and how valuable the materials are to them... sadly most of us overestimate the worth of our contributions in this arena. :)

[lucys]

Read the article "Online Highway Robbery" in the March issue of MERLOT's Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. The article discusses rights to course materials in great detail. Bottom line: it depends on the university.

[wishingiwasfishing]

I bought my own domain name, pay for my own hosting service, developed my own courses using my personal laptop and software that I own. There is a link in Blackboard to the "Course Site". They are not on institution servers, I maintain the usernames and passwords to access the courses.

It would be my belief that regardless of what is in the contract, I own these materials and all the rights to them. I'm sure an over-priced lawyer may beat me in court, but I have my copyright on every webpage.

[ideagirl]

It would be my belief that regardless of what is in the contract, I own these materials and all the rights to them. I'm sure an over-priced lawyer may beat me in court, but I have my copyright on every webpage.

It would be my belief that you should check the contract, because the university is paying you, and if your contract says what you create is "work for hire," that means the university owns everything you made while they were paying you, regardless of where/when/how you made it. The steps you've taken are no doubt helpful for proving your case, and as a practical matter they're helpful because (like they say) possession is 9/10ths of the law, but you can't just ignore what a contract says. And you certainly can't hope that a court will. It doesn't take an overpriced lawyer to say, "Well, it says here in paragraph 8(a) that everything you created while working for us was work for hire, so buh-bye, it's ours now."