Twigg (2000) summarizes the results from a Pew Symposia on property rights and distance education classes attended by 14 administrators from institutions of higher learning. The goal was to determine what institutions should offer in their policies on intellectual property rights. Why is there a shift towards institutions claiming property rights? Many institutions see course content as being a possible revenue “gold mine” that could be repackaged and sold, and many fear instructors might take these assets and create competition. Meanwhile professors are concerned that their instructional skills are being relegated to content development, and they fear losing positions to lesser skilled and far less remunerated “instructional designers.” Twigg argues that instructors are not so easily replaced because online classes demand even more skills and user interaction than face-to-face courses. Arguments about ownership can be helped by copyright law, but arguments hinge on the question of “works made for hire” and the historical “academic exception” to this. Copyright determines ownership, yet ownership is not the answer–“it is a red herring” because ownership does not necessarily include the legal ability to actually use the material (n.p.). Rather the real question is: who needs to do what with the work? The default position should be that ownership of course materials remains with faculty, however there is a need for policies to have built-in “triggers” for colleges or universities to receive royalties if they invest “substantial contributions” in these projects. Institutions should support faculty; this should not be a fight.
DiRamio and Kops (2004) discuss the huge impact that distance education has had on the learning environment and then look at three major aspects: (1) shared governance and education policies, (2) ownership and property rights issues of DE, and (3) issues of copyright and course materials for DE. The authors suggest separating debates on copyright and fair use from those concerning intellectual property, ownership, and control. They also recommend implementing TEACH for it affords many benefits. DiRamio and Kops conducted a study in which they interviewed higher education institutions and found that more institutions than not lacked formal distance education policies as well as documents concerning ownership of intellectual property. This problem afflicts two-year colleges more than universities, and in response the writers point out some of the issues of not having policies and urge well-thought-out policies. They also analyze copyright laws and and implications of TEACH for fair use. One problem is that the copyright law of 1976 was not necessarily applicable to distance education. For this current research, perhaps the greatest importance of this article is in summarizing McSherry’s study from 2001 in which the idea is presented that faculty should probably forgo discussions on copyright concerning distance education materials and instead claim that they are part of their “public persona” and thus are protected utilizing a “privacy-celebrity legal strategy” (p. 44).
After noting that scholars are “highly mobile” and comparing higher education institutions versus faculties’ concerns over who maintains control of educational content, Zhang and Carr-Chellman (2006) contrast two models for developing institutional courseware (p. 175). They note that this disagreement over control stems from differing viewpoints: faculty believe institutions are there to support educators in their research and quests for knowledge, whereas administrators believe faculty are there to serve the institution itself (p. 176). They admit that instructional designers (IDs) often assist faculty in these endeavors (“collaborative creation”), so courseware is different than face-to-face instruction (p. 177). The first model comes from the Association of American Universities (AAU) whose stance is that the university should own the intellectual property created by professors and that this is intrinsically different from patents (pp. 177-178). Whereas the Association of American University Professors (AAUP) argue that Policies from three university systems are then compared. University of Texas faculty have traditionally owned their own materials, and they should continue, but admit the institution should get royalties if they have contributed. Penn State is concerned about competition from other institutions and thus the institution maintains property rights. The University of Wisconsin maintains ownership of courseware only when: “a) work-for-hire or b) assigned duty, or c) with substantial use of institutional support of involvement” (p. 181). Zhang and Carr-Chellman laude UW for defining “substantial use.” They finish by asking an essential question: what is the goal or mission of higher education -- advancement of knowledge and education or procurement of patents and copyrightable works?
Nobel Laureate and Columbia Professor, Joseph Stiglitz delivers an extremely thought-provoking and instructive streamed lecture on intellectual property rights sponsored by Duke University. Although not directly about distance education, his thoughts on property ownership strike at the very core of the issue of intellectual rights. Stiglitz argues that patents and rights commonly believed to foster creativity and advanced science may actually be slowing innovation. This has tremendous economic implications for the United States compared to other countries as well as for people who are economically challenged and dying from diseases who cannot pay exorbitant prices for medicine. Other examples are given of globalization and intellectual property issues including looking at the history of patenting the automobile and airplane, besides Microsoft, “bio-piracy,” and the WTO. Stiglitz speaks out against the inequities of the “intellectual property regime” although he admits that theft of intellectual property is stealing. He posits that “knowledge is a public good” and that “academics…want [their] ideas disseminated.” Alternatives to the patent system including a price system and guaranteed purchase funds are offered.
references (bibliography)
Distance Education and Ownership by William Straub is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Do you think the Copyright Law of 76 is not necessarily applicable to distance education because distance eduacation--at least not as we now know it--didn't exist back in 1976?
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