Intellectual Property with Respect to Course Development

When I was recently at a junior college workshop for adjunct instructors there was a great deal of emphasis placed on the development and "publication" of your course content online. The junior college wanted to greatly expand their online course offerings as either a "hybrid" class which would meet about one-third of the time as a regular class or as a complete online course. Instructors were encouraged to develop their course with the aid of the "distance learning" department. There are many good points to such a program and many potential problems.

Development: There is seldom any payment for the work that you do in the development phase and there the instructor retains no "intellectual rights" in most cases. In addition the instructor is not even guaranteed future positions, increased assignments to classes, future credit etc. The colleges and universities may use part or all of the course work developed for your classes or any other similar classes that might be developed. Their point of view is that they are providing a system that will make your grading and delivery more efficient and reduce your work. This reduction in work is after development. If you were to publish a book or manuscript later and had already used the same material in your online presentation there may be a serious conflict about who retains the rights to the material. There is potentially the situation in which you will not be considered for an instructor position if you do not agree to develop the online course for the same rate of payment as if you were to teach the course by an on-ground method. Since the development of a course could take hundreds of extra hours your effective payment is then very greatly reduced. While again it is true that future times that you teach that same course may be easier it will probably require constant updates as materials do change. Every time you teach the course you may have to change the syllabus, website addresses, dates and times, calendar, start and drop dates, instructor information etc. You don't even get credit for "publication" which is often required for professors to advance or receive tenure.

Pictures: The universities and colleges will require the instructors to have permission to use any pictures, sound, graphics, etc used in their course development, but how this is actually documented is sometimes questionable. This actually leaves the university and the instructor partly at risk for any copyright infringement. Because the instructor was the developer it is quite likely that the instructor would be the primary responsibility holder. If the pictures and graphics were pictures the instructor actually took or made, then it is generally assumed to be the property of the college or university at that point, with a question surrounding the amount of rights the instructor would retain.

Testing Security: At one time courses that were conducted remotely required testing at a testing location or by an authorized proctor. Even though there are many methods in place to document that the person taking the test is the correct person, there are just as many ways around the process for those attempting to circumvent the system. This could pose a problem later for the instructor and the institution. This poses an additional risk if there are scholarship or grant funds involved for the student or institution. The instructor designed test is also "intellectual property" which now becomes part of the institutions property.

The bottom line here is that the internet has created a significant problem with how to appropriately deal with maintaining "intellectual property" and properly supporting the work by many thousands of instructors. These matters need to be cleared up before we get so far down this path we do have a meltdown that involves the validy of work produced and grading assigned.