25.1 The role of university faculty in the oer world  (Page 4/6)

Now back to chargeable work, no tenure for me ;-(

regards, Richard Wyles

2. vardi - may 4th, 2008 at 9:54 am

Regarding the basic question of “If the role of faculty is to produce knowledge, do faculty have a right to the protection of their intellectual property?”, I find it naive. The real question is who owns the copyright, the university or the faculty? Since faculty work for hire, one could argue that the university should own the copy right. There are arguments why faculty should own the copyright.

When it comes to other forms of IP, such as patents and software copyright, most US universities have asserted ownership of those.

IMHO, this is what the argument should focus on. The “role-based argument” make no sense to me.

Moshe Vardi

3. ken udas - may 5th, 2008 at 4:17 am

Moshe&Joel,

Although I do find “sense” in the role based question (role of faculty in society) that Joel poses, but I also think that there is something missing that Moshe touches on and it relates to the following question:

What is the academy’s role in society?

What are some of the substantive contours to those relationships as they relate to IP? I think that these questions point to the relationships between the academy and faculty and the creation of IP and how IP is treated.

The academy’s role might take a disproportionably large place in my thinking right now because many of the Open Courseware (OCW) initiatives have been institutional. In addition, it seems to me, at least around Courseware, that the nature of concerns relating to Open Courseware is different for individual faculty members and for academic administrators.

To Moshe’s point, at Penn State there is a distinction made between “Commissioned” and “Non-Commissioned” work. Here is some of the language:

When the University initiates the development of courseware as part of a University-employed author’s normal duties or as a special project for which extra compensation is provided, it will be considered a commissioned work and the University will own the copyright…

… In some cases, University personnel may initiate the development of courseware independent of a specific commission by the University. The University makes no claim to copyright ownership for noncommissioned courseware initiated and completed by University-employed authors, but, for works within the scope of the author’s University employment, will claim the royalty-free nonexclusive right to use such courseware in University programs.

Ken

4. ahrashb - may 5th, 2008 at 12:52 pm

Thanks for sparking this conversation, Joel. There are too many questions posed to weigh in succinctly in this format, but I think that Richard’s responses offer a great place to start.

First, there is no question that the NC term is problematic in the education space. The issue really boils down to one of intent… If the intent of the creator is to profit (monetarily) from the works, then the NC term is perfectly reasonable. Otherwise, it generally doesn’t make sense. The problem is that most people apply the license due to a sense of moral placement; i.e., if I am not intending to make any money, why should I allow anyone else to do so? I think that this position is the inevitable outcome of many, many years of societal positioning regarding the “noble” status of those in the teaching profession. To the extent that being a university faculty member is a sacrifice (a tenuous position, in my view), then it makes sense that faculty would feel the need to prevent their work from being used profitably (in all senses of the word) by anyone else.