| LINKS
|
 |
Academic
Computing Steering Committee
(AcCSC) Minutes of Meetings: Present: Batson, Bauman, Boyer, Keller, Klein, McFadden, Sener, Smith, Traver; Guest: R. Wells
Review of last meeting's minutes 1. Web office update. T. Smith, campus Web Director, reported on some new developments from the web office:
2. Intellectual Property Rights Policy. Bob Wells, representing the Faculty Executive Committee joined the committee to discuss the draft IPR policy circulated last week. Relevant links:
Bob acknowledged that there were some special circumstances when the College might legitimately have a claim to some part of a product produced by a faculty member, such as where the College had commissioned the work, and paid a stipend for its production. In general, however, the faculty members interest is in protecting the work they do. He suggested that he would prefer wording that presumed that all intellectual property resides with the faculty member, with a list of exceptions. We noted that rights were not necessarily all-or-nothing; there could be instances of shared rights, where the College retains the right, for example to continue to offer an online course, and the faculty member retains the right to use the materials at another school if he or she leaves Union. All agreed on the importance of having a clear policy, prior to the creation of any work in which the College might want to retain some rights. We discussed why Tom's policy dealt only with wholly online courses; what makes materials developed for a wholly online course any different from materials developed for a traditional course. Tom pointed out that his policy was actually much narrower, because it presumed that materials for traditional courses were wholly the faculty member's. He also noted that wholly online courses were special in that the (a) required clear extra investment, (b) might have more commercial value, and (c) are portable, giving rise to the threat of competition. In recognition, however, that the College does sometime make extraordinary investments in materials designed to be used with traditional courses, we agreed that we might as well make the policy broad enough to include these cases. Tom agreed to revise, and substantially shorten the policy, along the lines of the discussion. In particular, incorporating the wording that Bob W. suggested of the rights residing with the faculty member, except for circumstances which would be listed. Furthermore, it will be noted that for the College to retain rights, a written agreement will need to be executed. Tom will revise and circulate a new draft for next week's meeting. The meeting adjourned at 3:25 next meeting: February 13, 2002, 2:45, Steinmetz 237 |
© 2002 Union College, Schenectady, New York |
||
