Intellectual property and the faculty member: IHE article

[downer]

I don't understand this fixation on recorded video. Universities: "We need to own this content." Faculty: "We need to own this content." The reality: the content has no monetary value. It's worthless. Doesn't matter who owns it. Dr. X isn't revealing the secret of how to build a personal hovercraft out of nothing but a paper clips and banana peels during his lecture on August 22, 2020. People aren't interested in paying money to access a badly-lit video of someone standing in front of a whiteboard talking for fifty minutes about the differences between John Locke's Second Treatise and Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. The same information is available for free, with much higher production value, from the local public library or on the internet.

That's all true. But it does mean that if I were ever tempted to put a lot of effort into making a video lecture, I would upload it to YouTube and just provide students a link to the video. Presumably doing that avoids any possible copyright worries about the school owning my work and I can live in hope of going viral.

I don't undertand much about the copyright implications when I upload my video to YouTube, but I do know I keep control over whether the video is available or not.

[spork]

I don't understand this fixation on recorded video. Universities: "We need to own this content." Faculty: "We need to own this content." The reality: the content has no monetary value. It's worthless. Doesn't matter who owns it. Dr. X isn't revealing the secret of how to build a personal hovercraft out of nothing but a paper clips and banana peels during his lecture on August 22, 2020. People aren't interested in paying money to access a badly-lit video of someone standing in front of a whiteboard talking for fifty minutes about the differences between John Locke's Second Treatise and Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. The same information is available for free, with much higher production value, from the local public library or on the internet.

That's all true. But it does mean that if I were ever tempted to put a lot of effort into making a video lecture, I would upload it to YouTube and just provide students a link to the video. Presumably doing that avoids any possible copyright worries about the school owning my work and I can live in hope of going viral.

I don't undertand much about the copyright implications when I upload my video to YouTube, but I do know I keep control over whether the video is available or not.

I can understand wanting to retain the ability to use content one has produced for a course at one university for potential use in a course at a different university. No sense re-recording that world's greatest lecture on Locke vs. Heidegger. But Zoom? Are people thinking that a video of their Wednesday 9:00 am History 101 class is going to have any value?  It's not edited. Audio will likely be sub-par. Lighting will probably be terrible. Or are people producing Crash Course World History-quality videos in home studios and uploading them to Zoom instead of, as you point out, YouTube?

I think a lot of faculty vastly overestimate the monetary value of self-made content. 99.999% of us are easily replaceable.

[Caracal]

I don't understand this fixation on recorded video. Universities: "We need to own this content." Faculty: "We need to own this content." The reality: the content has no monetary value. It's worthless. Doesn't matter who owns it. Dr. X isn't revealing the secret of how to build a personal hovercraft out of nothing but a paper clips and banana peels during his lecture on August 22, 2020. People aren't interested in paying money to access a badly-lit video of someone standing in front of a whiteboard talking for fifty minutes about the differences between John Locke's Second Treatise and Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. The same information is available for free, with much higher production value, from the local public library or on the internet.

Yes, that's a much more articulate version of what I was trying to say. To illustrate the point, I would give my powerpoint and lectures notes to almost any instructor who asked for them. It isn't like there's lots of original work in there. Some of it is cribbed from other people's lecture notes they shared with me, other parts are lifted from secondary works. That's what a lecture is. The whole thing only has value in context. If you're a student in my class, the lectures are going to help you understand where the the readings fit and will (hopefully) draw you into discussions. If you aren't my student and you asked me how you could learn more about the topic, I wouldn't send you some lectures, I'd just give you a reading list.
If a school wanted some cheap template for the course they'd just use a textbook and have an instructor go through it in a boring way in class. They wouldn't want to waste their time with my stuff.

[Caracal]

I think a lot of faculty vastly overestimate the monetary value of self-made content. 99.999% of us are easily replaceable.

The less depressing way of thinking about it is that the value we have is not in the content. The content is easily replaceable. Our job is to give that content meaning and guide students through how to understand and interact with it.

[Bonnie]

here is why I(and others) are loath to use the Blackboard shells as repositories for our videos.

Once you have a shell on the university site, and then someone else is chosen (perhaps an adjunct) to teach the class, then what is to prevent some admincritter from directing the computer people to provide the new person with YOUR old course shell. Conceivably that new instructor could administer your work, which would include all of your lectures! The university would collect tuition, the new instructor would collect a wage, and you would collect nothing at all!

This happened in my department a few years ago. Fortunately the tech people had to make the request of the teaching development people (where the LMS lives). The teaching development people responded with, "But that is Dr. B's property. You can not just give it to someone else to use." Tech pushed back. Teaching development pushed back harder. Tech and chair lost the battle. I often wonder what the result would have been if they'd gone above teaching development, but I think they knew they were being sleazy and so didn't push.

[sinenomine]

Years ago, administration asked me to develop online courses and was very candid in saying that my materials would then be handed over to others to "facilitate" courses. I carefully wove in personal anecdotes and references to current news, thus forcing anyone using the materials to revise them.

[clean]

I have already pointed out the primary issue here.  Unfortunately, I have 2 bad experiences that lead me toward not doing loading more than the barest minimum to a shell. 

1.  The first time this was an issue, an untenured faculty member was told by the chair that the course  he had taught and developed was being given to another faculty member and that she (the chair) was giving the material to the new hire. She claimed that because the work was done in the university computer, using university software, and that he was paid as a faculty member to do this, that the university could do this.

The untenured faculty member pushed back.  "I did this over the summer when I was not paid, on MY laptop, using a demo version of software that the university does not yet subscribe.  You have NO claim on MY unpaid summer work, done on my computer and software"  (He then took another job!) 

2.  I have had similar warning signs. I have a particularly lazy, selfish (but very friendly with the dean) coworker that constantly tries to minimize the work that he has to do, or the time he has to devote to doing it.  (A ROAD Scholar -- Retired On Active Duty )  He has tried to have other peoples shells copied to him. 
I dont really want to monetize my lectures, but I will be damned IF I let someone else be PAID to play my recordings (OF ME Mind you!)  in their classes!!

Again, I wish that this was a thought exercise. Unfortunately, it is just another area where my university has demonstrated that they lack honor and are untrustworthy. 

[apl68]

I don't understand this fixation on recorded video. Universities: "We need to own this content." Faculty: "We need to own this content." The reality: the content has no monetary value. It's worthless. Doesn't matter who owns it. Dr. X isn't revealing the secret of how to build a personal hovercraft out of nothing but a paper clips and banana peels during his lecture on August 22, 2020. People aren't interested in paying money to access a badly-lit video of someone standing in front of a whiteboard talking for fifty minutes about the differences between John Locke's Second Treatise and Martin Heidegger's Being and Time. The same information is available for free, with much higher production value, from the local public library or on the internet.

That's all true. But it does mean that if I were ever tempted to put a lot of effort into making a video lecture, I would upload it to YouTube and just provide students a link to the video. Presumably doing that avoids any possible copyright worries about the school owning my work and I can live in hope of going viral.

I don't undertand much about the copyright implications when I upload my video to YouTube, but I do know I keep control over whether the video is available or not.

I can understand wanting to retain the ability to use content one has produced for a course at one university for potential use in a course at a different university. No sense re-recording that world's greatest lecture on Locke vs. Heidegger. But Zoom? Are people thinking that a video of their Wednesday 9:00 am History 101 class is going to have any value?  It's not edited. Audio will likely be sub-par. Lighting will probably be terrible. Or are people producing Crash Course World History-quality videos in home studios and uploading them to Zoom instead of, as you point out, YouTube?

I think a lot of faculty vastly overestimate the monetary value of self-made content. 99.999% of us are easily replaceable.

The last Zoom meeting I attended had the wonky sound and feedback, plus audible coughing, throat-clearing, and burping.  I wouldn't think that academic Zoom sessions with that sort of thing would have any value beyond the immediate class.

[Caracal]

I have already pointed out the primary issue here.  Unfortunately, I have 2 bad experiences that lead me toward not doing loading more than the barest minimum to a shell. 

1.  The first time this was an issue, an untenured faculty member was told by the chair that the course  he had taught and developed was being given to another faculty member and that she (the chair) was giving the material to the new hire. She claimed that because the work was done in the university computer, using university software, and that he was paid as a faculty member to do this, that the university could do this.

The untenured faculty member pushed back.  "I did this over the summer when I was not paid, on MY laptop, using a demo version of software that the university does not yet subscribe.  You have NO claim on MY unpaid summer work, done on my computer and software"  (He then took another job!) 

2.  I have had similar warning signs. I have a particularly lazy, selfish (but very friendly with the dean) coworker that constantly tries to minimize the work that he has to do, or the time he has to devote to doing it.  (A ROAD Scholar -- Retired On Active Duty )  He has tried to have other peoples shells copied to him. 
I dont really want to monetize my lectures, but I will be damned IF I let someone else be PAID to play my recordings (OF ME Mind you!)  in their classes!!

Again, I wish that this was a thought exercise. Unfortunately, it is just another area where my university has demonstrated that they lack honor and are untrustworthy.

These might be examples of poor behavior, but I'm not really sure they make the case for being concerned about your intellectual teaching property. It would be hard to argue that schools have no claim to use anything a faculty member has done for a class that person isn't teaching. For example, suppose someone leaves just quits in the middle of the semester. Would anyone really argue that whoever takes over the class can't use that person's Canvas shell, or even their recorded lectures?

When I was pretty new to teaching, I took on a course three days before classes started after the previous instructor backed out at the last minute. The chair gave me his syllabus and told me I was free to use it. I didn't actually use any of it, because it didn't fit with the way I wanted to teach the class, but it would seem strange to argue that it would have been wrong to do so.

[clean]

These might be examples of poor behavior, but I'm not really sure they make the case for being concerned about your intellectual teaching property.

Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, shame on ME!

You are warned! 
Imagine being stopped in the hall or in your office by someone else's students to be asked questions about something in the lecture you recorded years ago because the students see YOU , so YOU must be their professor, and OWE them an audience!

Dont put things in the Course Shell that you dont want someone else to use, in its entirety! 

(note that the syllabus is a poor counter example.  Our accrediting agencies require that there be a copy of a Master Syllabus for all courses anyway.  Only some of the details are section specific).

[Caracal]

These might be examples of poor behavior, but I'm not really sure they make the case for being concerned about your intellectual teaching property.

Fool me once, shame on you
Fool me twice, shame on ME!

You are warned! 
Imagine being stopped in the hall or in your office by someone else's students to be asked questions about something in the lecture you recorded years ago because the students see YOU , so YOU must be their professor, and OWE them an audience!

Dont put things in the Course Shell that you dont want someone else to use, in its entirety! 

Again, some of this may be discipline specific, but I am quite sure nobody wants to use my recorded lectures for their course. Perhaps in fields where the material is more fixed, this seems like a more realistic concern?

[ciao_yall]

We had a PT faculty member who created a class. Unfortunately, it looked as though he would need to be bumped by a FT faculty to give that faculty load. He fought it, complained to the union, etc.

The FT faculty agreed to let him keep the class because...

(1) It was going to be the last semester the class would ever be taught because the PT hadn't bothered to keep with the paperwork, so it had expired in our curriculum system. So why do all the prep for one semester?
(2) It was a very non-standard class - not even a textbook - so prep was going to be pretty challenging.
(3) Although we are required to submit our syllabi with the department chair every semester, he had never done so. It wasn't clear what he was even doing in the class over the semester. And for the FT to take over the class without a starting point it was pretty much impossible.

It's one of the classic problems with relying too heavily on PT faculty who are specialists in their areas. Curriculum bureaucracy shouldn't be their responsibility, but if it doesn't get done, there isn't anyone else to do it. If they innovate a program they should have first rights to the class. If they are the only expert in the area, that should be respected over "seniority."