Answer: The Public
In my research over the past weeks, the articles and books primarily focused upon the debate over whether IP (intellectual property) rights of DE course materials reside with the instructors and/or with the institutions. Rhoades has reintroduced The Public back into the argument between professors/instructors and institutions of higher learning regarding property rights. This is the most intriguing and thought-provoking argument, in this writer's opinion, thus far in this research project. Rhoades worries about the commodification of education along the lines of big business and that academia is losing the trust of the public. What has led to making big business out of universities? According to Rhoades, part of the issue stems from the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980 which allows faculty and universities to own patents on their academic work. Also technological advancements such as the Internet, coupled with financial issues of higher education, have led to a “corporatization in higher education” (paragraph 9). He is concerned that The Public is left out of the equation of property ownership, although tax money has often times paid for the initial research and work. Therefore he proposes placing educational materials in the public domain as a more equitable solution to the property rights and ownership debate.
Nevertheless, this argument is not without its flaws. Despite Rhoades concern for the core values of academia, and the good of students as well as the overall public good, current copyright and/or patent law allows for claiming rights on ideas fixed in some format. Thus Rhoades' idea of placing DE course materials in the public domain does not necessarily protect them from someone with less benevolent intentions of co-opting those ideas, rewriting them in a slightly different form, and then seeking to garner the rights to those materials. Unless some other system can be put in place to protect course materials outside of the world of academia, his goal of placing academic works in the public domain may not materialize. Despite this, it is this writer's contention that Rhoades is onto something very important. What about the public and the taxpayers? Is it just that they should be left out of the equation of intellectual property rights?
Unfortunately in the meantime, students and instructors, as well as the public, might be better served by simply allowing the current situation to go on. Although stricken with debate, often it is the faculty who retain rights over the materials they have created. If an institution has given substantial assistance in the preparation of those materials, it should be entitled to royalties, if not outright ownership of the materials depending upon the amount of assistance. Each institution currently can have its own policy which dictates who retains the rights over DE courses and materials. It is a flawed system, and often unclear, however for the most part it keeps course materials within the realm of the university or college where they were created. And that allows students to continue to benefit from distance education classes and materials. With lifelong learning, we are all students at various times in our lives, and therefore we all stand to benefit.
Distance Education and Ownership by William Straub is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
William,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your thorough, informative, interesting, and well presented blog on this topic. I think you chose a very timely subject which will continue to see a fair amount of change and debate in the forseeable future. This, combined with your personal vested interest, resulted in a thought provoking final product. On a personal level, I had never given any thought to the fact that distance education--or for that matter, even traditional educational settings--would raise its own set on intellectual property issues. Therefore, following this blog has been an eye opener for me and provided me with information I'm not sure I would have otherwise encountered in my professional career as a public librarian.
Your organization is to be commended. I was impressed that from the beginning you kept your scope manageable and within what could be adequately expressed during a condensed summer class. However, if you do continue to explore this topic further, I will be interested to follow your blog and your subsequent discoveries. I really appreciated your posting entitled "What Does Distance Education have to do with Libraries and Librarianship". This particular post personally appealed to me--I like being able to see relevance in fairly black and white terms. This brought home the point that this is important and something that should matter to me, on both a professional and personal level--and not just because I'm taking a course. You also mentioned an article by Crews and stated that there are eight ways libraries will be involved in distance education--I would have been interested to read more about that. I also found your "Disclosure" post a professional courtesy, as well as opening up a personal perspective. I think despite (and I don't mean that in a negative way) your background and previous perceptions, you were able to definitely present your blog in an unbiased manner.
Dividing the literature review into separate segments was also a very strong point of your blog. Breaking this down into three parts make it easier for me to fully comprehend the valuable information you conveyed. Also, you did well with your annotations/abstracts of each book or article you referred to and I felt you conveyed many important points. You were able to provide good support on a variety of major themes and your sources were scholarly and reliable.
What most impressed me regarding your blog was how well you tied this topic into intellectual property, copyright, and fair use, which is of course, the point of this class. You provided a solid background, a personal interest, relevance to libraries (and librarians), and kept bringing it back to the matter at hand--IP, copyright, and fair use. Your discussions demonstrated a solid understanding of these areas and you were able to deftly tie it all together for the novice reader (that would be me).
Suggestions? Not too many. I did find myself with some questions on some of your posts (which I will post separately) and I would have been interested in learning about any relevant court cases and how they turned out. However, I think it is important to recognize the blog format for what it is. It is not a definitive research paper, but rather a grouping of selective musings, and while all of my questions may not be answered, perhaps it's best to look at the text as "teasers"--you made me want to read more and learn more and provided me with the links to do so, and now it's up to me to follow up--and I think the fact that you have inspired me to continue learning is proof positive that your blog was successful.
Have a great rest of the summer and best wishes,
Beth Ryan
William-
ReplyDeleteI apologize-I jumped the gun earlier this evening--assumed your blog was completed and posted my review on your previous entry. However, I noticed you made a final entry, and I'm glad I noticed, because it is a fantastic conclusion and really ties all of your hard work together. I have just a few more remarks. I had attempted to rework these into my intitial review but found I am unable to post the merged review because it evidently is now too long. So, please just add the following to my original remarks!
Nice wrap up on the history. It makes sense that universities turned to distance education as a way to save money and I found it interesting that it often cost them more money because of the time such classes involve. I could completely understand the problem of the huge amount of time spent "responding to posts and questions, as well as engaging in discussions"--looks like the same issue I have as a student also applies to the teachers! I also found your discussion interesting on how taxpayers are paying twice for faculty published materials, and it seems that this may play a larger role in future debates regarding "for hire" employees, as these faculty are ultimately employees of the taxpayers, not the public universities. I also found your argument that "lectures and contents are almost dramatic works" intriguing, and as copyright law has shown in the past, this small distinction may wind up making all the difference in future debates.
The amount of time you have spent researching and analyzing this topic shows in your "possible solutions". As with your entire blog, you have effectively balanced proven research with your own personal, and solid, knowledge and opinions.
I also found your remarks on academia interesting. While reading your blog, I kept thinking that so much of this was foreign to me, much like academia itself. As a returning adult student, working in a small(ish) town public library, the academia I have been exposed to is all quite new. I have a hard time understanding the "publish or perish" mind frame as well as tenure issues, as these are situations that just don't occur in my own life. Therefore, I have always appreciated your point of view as a community college instructor and this view--which I can more readily identify with--helps me apply it to a university level.