Stevens Institute's Policy on Online Courses Rewards Faculty Members Who Create Them

Stevens Institute of Technology faculty members last month approved what administrators say is a model intellectual-property policy for online education. The policy gives many of the rights and rewards for courses to the faculty members who develop them.

Under the policy, faculty members at the New Jersey institution will be paid to develop online courses, will own the material in the courses they develop, and will control how that material can be used. The institution will control the copyrights of the online courses and will manage the courses' distribution.

In return for giving up the copyright on a course, a faculty member will receive a third of the revenue whenever a business or other institution purchases use of the course, says Robert Ubell, who is director of Web-based distance learning at Stevens and is also chairman of the committee that developed the policy. He says that faculty members, who usually don't have the resources to market courses themselves, will benefit from Stevens's handling of promotion and distribution chores.

"It's very much like a traditional publishing agreement," Mr. Ubell says. "The model has been in place for centuries."

A faculty member who leaves Stevens can take his or her courses to a new institution if it pays Stevens a licensing fee -- and the professor would get a third of the money.

Stevens's Board of Trustees still must vote on the policy, but administrators say its approval is likely.

The development of policies for ownership of online courses has been a contentious issue for some colleges and universities. Some institutions retain ownership themselves, some allow faculty members to retain ownership, and some rely on arrangements under which ownership is shared.

Keith Sheppard, a professor of materials science and engineering, says the new policy is a fair way to balance the needs of the institution with those of the faculty.

Among the policy's strengths, Mr. Sheppard says, is that it allows for flexibility in different situations. A faculty member who takes the initiative to create an online course, for instance, will retain more control than one who is approached by the institution in a work-for-hire deal.

"We felt that one could not have a one-size-fits-all policy for the institution," says Mr. Sheppard.

Joseph J. Moeller, vice president for the graduate school and research services, says the policy should help spur faculty members to create courses that will improve the institution's online-education program, which now consists of six graduate degrees.

The policy, he says, offers incentives that let faculty members know "that what they are creating is valuable both financially and in terms of developing a quality relationship with the institution and community."

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