Copyright

Copyright is a contentious matter. Academics work is based on their teaching and research. When academics move from one institution to another, they must be able to continue using their teaching and research materials and resources.

This requires some detailed, and nuanced, agreements, particularly in the case of distance education materials.

The default position at many universities (e.g. Portsmouth) is that the copyright in material produced as a 'scholarly work' or as a 'teaching aid' is the copyright of the academic. However the copyright in 'course materials' produced for a course run by the university resides with the university. The overlap between these categories could cause some confusion.

[|Theory and Practice in Online Learning] outlines how the policies and practices have developed at Athabasca University in Canada, one of the world's leading distance learning institutions. In Chapter 9, **Copyright Issues in Online Courses: A Moment in Time**, Lori-Ann Claerhout writes:

It is important for any educational institution to have clear copyright policy that outlines who owns course material, and how the course material can be used by others.

Under Canadian law, copyright resides with the creator of original material captured in a fixed form. The major exception occurs when the creation is done under employment or using an employer's facilities or machinery. As the lines of what constitutes “under employment” are indistinct (particularly in the university environment, where work may be done on non-employer computers and hours of work can be erratic), internal policy and agreement are necessary. In most traditional universities in Canada and elsewhere, the university explicitly returns copyright for educational and academic materials to the employee-creators (normally the faculty members).

Athabasca University was created as a single-mode distance education institution in the early 1970s, and from its origin has had a much different policy in regard to ownership of instructional content. Contributors to Athabasca University courses often include visual designers, instructional designers, and editors, along with the content developers or faculty members. With each profession contributing to the whole course, rights are dispersed. In response, the University has developed and maintains policy stating that the University owns the copyright on all course materials created by any and all University staff. In the electronic environment, course production methods have changed and new technological positions have been added; however, Athabasca University's original rights ownership policy (created primarily for print-based courses) remains the same. Athabasca University's goodwill agreement with staff creators does allow material originally written for their courses to be used in other academic publications, provided that reference is made to the employer.

Simonson et al. describe a hybrid model of ownership as another possibility. **In this model, the institution owns the course and the faculty member owns the content. In this situation, if the faculty member accepts a position elsewhere, she or he can take the course content to the new campus and use it there. However, the course itself, including the content, also may be used by the former institution, with a new instructor assigned to teach the course.** (2003, p. 137)

Simonson et al. (2003) also describe policies specifying royalty payouts to each party working on the course, including faculty and instructional technologists.