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Minutes of 17 November 1998 Members attending: Carolyn Argentati, David Broome, Mark Crowell, David Danehower, Lisa Grable, Peggy Hoon, Carolyn Miller, Sandra Newville, Michael Rappa, Rebeca Rufty, Clifford Swanson, Ross Whetten, Luke Zettlemoyer. Staff attending: Annis Barbee 1. Discussion of Reviewed Policies and Articles 2. Report on Pending Legislation 3. Town Meeting Update 4. Other Business. Co-chair David Danehower called the meeting to order at 2:15 P.M. Daneehower introduced the newest member of the subcommittee, undergraduate representative Luke Zettlemoyer. Majoring in computer science and mathematics, Zettlemoyer does research with the Intellimedia Initiative in the Computer Science department and the School of Design. 1. Discussion of Reviewed Policies and Articles Rappa began the discussion of policies reviewed, and he distributed to the group a collection of charts summarizing his study and grouping policies according to emphasis--e.g., author as owner, institution as owner. Rappa emphasized that definitions were not standardized in most cases in these policies. He also pointed out that often sponsorship of research fell into categories of university or corporate sponsorship. Policies varied from being elaborate and detailed to cursory statements regarding copyright ownership. Rappa suggested that the more common practice is to mimic universities whose practices have proven themselves in use. Rappa also distributed to the group a business model he constructed illustrating journal article publishing from its creation to integration into other research, following through publication, distribution, archiving, and redistribution. His model also reviewed the financial investment involved in such an enterprise. Newville reported that distance education and eventual course ownership is a concern among the NC State faculty she has worked with, and she emphasized that this needs to be a part of any policy recommendation the task force makes. The group further discussed faculty ownership of Internet courses and the potential dangers of forcing faculty to put courses on the Web without university resources. Crowell suggested that NC State University policy emphasizes institutional ownership of anything faculty members create within the scope of their employment. Broome added that licensing might be applicable if a faculty member brought work they had done at another university, or if they had created something partly elsewhere and partly at NC State. Hoon reported that she and Broome had attended a National Association of College and University Attorneys (NACUA) conference in Washington, D.C. entitled "Evolving an Intellectual Property Policy." She distributed her notes from the presentation by Karen Hersey, MIT intellectual property counsel, entitled "How To Construct An Intellectual Property Policy." The premise for Hersey's presentation was "If you could start from scratch, how would you go about constructing a good intellectual property policy for your university?" Hoon suggested that Hersey may be a good choice for speaker at the Scholarly Communication Colloquium scheduled for February 25. Hoon summarized her impressions of the November 5th UNC-GA Copyright Colloquium, stating that the meeting raised awareness among faculty from the other campuses in the system. She reported that there would probably be either a policy or system-wide policy framework within which each constituent institution could develop its own policy. Crowell agreed, from having attended the colloquium, that the policy framework would probably include ownership and use statements and specifics would come from the various institutions. Rappa responded that in its recommendations, the task force may want to consider both a broadly philosophical policy, and a more specific policy. From his research, he contended that the more general, "constitutional" policies would accomodate impending technological changes better than the more specific policies which are, in many cases, already dated. According to Hoon, early indications are that there will be two UNC-GA working groups--one on policy and one on educating the faculty--and Hoon suggested that NC State consider who could be representatives on each group. Whetten noted, as an example, that NC State engages in very widespread and active outreach that will be impacted by a comprehensive copyright ownership policy. UNC-GA's policy should be informed by that. A summary of this colloquium will be posted on the Web by Faculty Assembly chair Lolly Gasaway. Rufty reported on her study of the Indiana University Intellectual Property Policy and the Consortium for Educational Technology among California State University, State University of New York, and City University of New York. She stated that Indiana's policy very clearly spells out definitions of such crucial elements as "intellectual property," "creator," "the university," and it defines what particular offices would be responsible for implementing certain aspects of the policy. She contended that clear definitions and responsibilities are important to a policy. Rufty reported that the Consortium offered some important questions in its policy suggestions: a. Who developed the creative initiative? b. Who will control the content of the material? and c. How will compensation/salary be configured? The document redefines traditional terms such as "creator" and "publisher" in light of technological changes and highlights ownership of traditional works versus non-traditional works. Rufty noted that this article also includes extensive case study appropriate for a policy at NC State. Miller reported on her study of George Washington University's policy, noting two important points: a. The definition of substantial use included no reference to amounts of time or number of resources, and b. Audio visual, video, and television works were treated as different from other copyrightable works. Miller also reported from "Ownership of Electronic Course Materials in Higher Education," and useful from this, she noted, was a sidebar providing ownership options--if one assumes faculty authorship, then a set of options applies; if one assumes authorship as work for hire, then another set of options applies, for example. Broome reviewed MIT's work, emphasizing that definitions will drive the NC State University policy. He stated that a key area is "significant use" and that MIT has set up an office which decides what is significant use and monitors that. Broome also summarized the article he studied which contended that publishing electronically is cheaper with creators of works paying the page charges instead of libraries paying for subscriptions. Grable reported on the University of Kansas policy in which "significant use" is emphasized. However, if the work is not judged to be of commercial value, then significant use is not a concern. Crowell added that this is the case with patents at NC State. Grable noted that the University of Kansas retains a certain percentage (25% on average) of the revenue from materials that have been created by a faculty member if the university assisted in the distribution of that material. The group briefly discussed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the new liabilities for faculty this act presents. Crowell pointed out the issue of "shop rights" regarding patents and the fact that there is not a similar concept in copyright policy. Given new issues of electronic and multimedia courses, this concept needs to be considered in a copyright policy. Whetten suggested that the members should individually begin drafting an outline of a potential document based upon their readings and work on campus. He suggested that Karen Hersey's material is a good starting point and that the group should begin with the more general document and later come to the specifics. The group agreed to correspond via e-mail for this objective. Newville offered to explore, with faculty members, the investment of resources in preparing distance education courses and to discuss the best relationship between the faculty and university in this work. Whetten concurred that this is the kind of work now necessary to move the task force toward policy recommendations with faculty input. The meeting was adjourned at 3:52 p.m. Submitted by Annis Barbee
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