Intellectual Property Rights

While debates about who owns a lecture in a campus-based course are rare, issues of ownership may emerge when faculty are developing materials for use in a distance education course. The support provided to online faculty for course development varies and local practices with respect to compensation and ownership are diverse. Of the utmost importance in these matters is to establish transparency. If a faculty member is being compensated in some manner for the development of online materials, issues related to intellectual property rights must be dealt with as early as possible. Ideally, the faculty contract explicitly addresses these matters and aids in preventing conflicts. Reviewing local practices and policies as they relate to the following list can prevent issues from arising.

  1. Faculty should ensure that incentives and rewards for the development of distance education resources, course development, and delivery are clearly defined and understood.
  2. Expectations regarding workload must be defined, so that a faculty member developing or teaching a distance education course understands at the outset whether this activity will be considered as part of his/her workload or as overload. 
  3. Faculty members planning to teach distance education courses should investigate their local policies and processes for determining class size, and should consider the impact of establishing limits to class size on student learning, workload determination, and economic viability of the course.
  4. Faculty members planning to devote time to distance education activities should know what impact these activities will have on his/her promotion and tenure opportunities.

Intellectual Property and YOU