Charge Members Agendas Minutes Reports FYI

Copyright Ownership Task Force Minutes of 10 February 1999 Present: Carolyn Argentati, Annis Barbee, David Broome, Mark Crowell, Scott Despain, Ernest Knowles, Sandra Newville, Everette Prosise, Michael Rappa, and Ross Whetten. Guests: Harry Nicholos Agenda 1. Discussion of Test Cases in Policy Formulation 2. Faculty Senate Meeting Update 3. Copyright Ownership Town Meeting Plans 4. Other Business Co-chair Whetten called the meeting to order at 1:05 p.m. and suggested that items 1 and 2 on the agenda be reversed in the discussion order. 1. Faculty Senate Meeting Update Whetten reported that Lolly Gasaway, chair of the UNC-GA Faculty Assembly, made her biennial visit to the Faculty Senate at its meeting on February 9, 1999. She discussed Faculty Assembly activity, briefly mentioning the formulation of a system-wide task force to examine copyright ownership. According to Whetten, Gasaway emphasized that a major charge of the system-wide task force will be to educate faculty. Gasaway further reported that the Faculty Assembly has received permission to hold colloquia each year, the first one having been on copyright on November 5, 1999. The upcoming colloquium will be on technology and teaching. Gasaway also explained that the Faculty Assembly is currently working with legal staff and campus computing resources regarding the Public Records Act. The current interpretation is that any material stored on university computer systems is subject to the Public Records Act. UNC GA is considering the need for an amendment to that Act to protect material on these servers. Broome cautioned that material subject to the Public Records Act should not be confused with works in the public domain. Whetten summarized his report of 5-10 minutes at the meeting, stating that he began by recalling to the Faculty Senate their resolution of 1995 to begin educating faculty on issues of copyright ownership as well as their resolution to encourage faculty authors of journal articles to retain copyright to combat the journal pricing crisis. Whetten then stated that he described for the Senate members various copyright projects underway at NC State--town meetings, a colloquium, etc. to carry out copyright education objectives, and Whetten mentioned the work of the task force in development of copyright ownership and management policy. Whetten also pointed out to the Senate that Peggy Hoon is testifying before the U.S. Copyright Office regarding the distance education provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Whetten stated that there were no questions following his report. [return to agenda] 2. Discussion of Test Cases in Policy Formulation Whetten announced that task force members Carolyn Miller and David Danehower have been gathering information from Dr. Jim Clark regarding the CHASS textbook project as a model for assigning copyright for collaborative projects. Whetten reported on the structure of this project and the way in which royalties, copyright, and licensing were handled. Whetten suggested that event though this project is clearly a "work for hire" circumstance, the model may still inform situations regarding Web courses. Crowell stated that there has been another venture in the chemistry department since this CHASS project that may also be informative. Harry Nicholos, a systems programmer with NC State's computing services, attended the meeting to provide "test cases" for the task force policy recommendations. The group discussed various scenarios regarding Web use and course development. Scenarios offered for discussion included: a. The university owns the rights to a book created by a faculty member, but not to the online course. Does the university have any recourse to keep rights to the online version after the professor leaves? b. A faculty member develops an online course at the request of a university administrator.The administrator leaves the university. What happens to the course? c. A faculty member develops a course and teaches this at NC State. A publishing entity offers the professor a substantial sum for the course. Who gets the money? The faculty member moves to another university and takes the copy with him/her. Can the next institution sell this? The faculty member stays and sells the course to another university. Can the other university exercise authority in telling NC State and the faculty member not to use the course? d. A faculty member creates a course with minimal input from the university. This faculty member handles the technical aspects of the production. A publisher contacts the faculty member and wants to use this production as a base for an online course for large distribution. This course sits on university file space and was created in a university provided space, but the university had no other input. Is this significant use of resources? Who holds the rights to this course? e. A faculty member creates an online course with or without significant resources from the university. A textbook is developed from this course. Who owns the textbook? Who owns the online course? Rappa emphasized that the committee will have to define "significant use" in its policy recommendations, and the above scenarios will bring that into play. Rappa further suggested that the policy should not squelch a faculty member's desire to create a course on his/her own but should suggest that there are resources available for use on campus. Whetten suggested that clarifying significant use of resources may mean asking faculty to utilize the services provided by the university--Learning Technology Services, Digital Library Initiatives, Instructional Telecommunications--and to sign an agreement accepting shared royalty terms and recognizing significant resource use. Rappa suggested that additional contracts and agreements in using these resources may mean that either the services will not be used or that creativity may be squelched. Nicholos stated that because of the current EIFRT funding, the law is requiring these services to put dollar values on their help to faculty to track the funding. The task force concurred that it must be careful not to keep the traditional model in place and not to create a disincentive for faculty to delve into online course creation. Rappa suggested that the university might play some role in the publishing and distribution of materials created by faculty and staff. Whetten added that perhaps the university should, in this scenario, have the right of first refusal. The group agreed that the university should assume more of a partner role as opposed to employer in these endeavors. Crowell reported on the intellectual property policy from Brigham Young University which casts the university as publisher and distributor of faculty, staff, and student work. He requested that copies of this policy be distributed to the members of the task force. Barbee will link the BYU policy statement to the task force Web site. Whetten questioned whether or not the stateUmstead Act--an act which prohibits the university from being in direct conflict with private enterprise--would impact the notion of the university acting as publisher for faculty material. The group discussed the issue and suggested ways to avoid violation of this act. Whetten commented that if creating a separate publishing arm is the way to circumvent problems with the Umstead Act, such an entity may be forced to operate in a more commercial fashion and not necessarily in the way the university would. Whetten also suggested that the group seek to identify faculty motivation for independent course creation to help the university develop incentives for and assistance to faculty. Rappa suggested that the real value of faculty generated material is in its unique, creative edge. The uniqueness of the information on the web adds all of the value, and the university should identify these elements to begin supporting faculty as publisher and distributor. Because of time constraints, the other agenda items were deferred. [return to agenda] The meeting was adjourned at 2:41 p.m. Submitted by Annis Barbee

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Last Updated:3/23/99