With the proliferation of Internet resources being used in coordination with the classroom, many educators are copyrighting syllabi and lectures in fear of intellectual property theft.
On Courses, professors opting to post materials into “resources” can facilitate the campus-based course experience. The more tech-savvy instructors rely on Courses as a courier for timed quizzes and essays. Others use the system for the distribution of handouts and extra material. Many professors post lecture slides or study guides. The syllabus is always there, complete with the professor’s copyright for that year.
“I always wondered why teachers would put a copyright at the end of their syllabus, because it’s obvious their courses are distinct to them,” freshman Kendra Muecke said. “It’s not like I want to steal their policy on laptops.”
The copyright specifies policies for intellectual property of course content, including ownership of lectures, exams, handouts, PowerPoints, etc. Technically, under state common law and federal copyright law, classmates cannot give an absent student the lecture outline he or she missed while sick without the express, prior written consent of the professor.
This semester, more professors are explicitly stating their ownership of course content.
“It’s nothing new; we’re just saying it out loud now,” said Dr. Joi Carr, a member of the Academic Integrity Committee of the Humanities and Teacher Education Division. “Pedagogy is a form of scholarship, and what you teach and how you teach it is valuable.”
Displaying course material presents risk to both the class and the instructor, and yet many say it’s still necessary.
Professor Cindy Miller-Perrin said she believes the university adopted the policy when faculty found students selling PowerPoint presentations to an online company.
“I did happen to learn that one of my students had sold my PowerPoints to such a company which is an infringement of intellectual property rights,” Miller-Perrin wrote in an email to the Graphic.
The student took down her sale at Miller-Perrin’s request, and at the time, no disciplinary actions were taken.
“With the current policy, students are now aware that it is unethical to sell/post professors lectures/PowerPoints without their permission,” Miller-Perrin wrote. “I do choose to post them following the lectures (e.g., posting them right before the exams) for pedagogical reasons.”
Now, anyone with an iTunes account can access iTunes U, a comprehensive iTunes function that features college courses in podcast or video form. The universities and colleges range from the Ivy League to Pepperdine.
The most popular download from Pepperdine’s iTunes U collection is Susan Salas, associate professor of Telecommunications and director of Broadcasting. Her free “Script Breakdown and Scheduling” podcast has a running of almost 39 minutes. Her other two lectures, “Screenwriting” Parts 1 and 2, follow in the next most downloads.
Does this mean fewer people are taking Salas’s class?
A 2008 study published in the Computers and Education journal documented students who missed a class using an iTunes U lecture as opposed to getting notes from a friend. The researchers found that not only did those who used the iTunes U lectures outperform the ones with a friend’s notes in exams, but the iTunes U users also performed significantly better than the ones actually in class. According to the study, these findings were “unexpected and somewhat novel in the body of literature on the use of technology to aid learning.” The study found that students were using iTunes U “in place” of a college lecture, not to enhance.
Should students choose to keep notes, the lure to sell them may surface. The “Destination Freshman” group on Facebook features pleas to buy or sell textbooks from last semester. Between some of these transactions lie a handful of note-sellers. Many class notes sell for around $5 to $10. And the ever-floating Humanities 111 teacher assistant notes don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
Seaver College has a clear statement of its policy in the Code of Academic Integrity. Buying or selling “notes” can be interpreted as a Third-Level violation.
Associate Dean of Students for Judicial Affairs Sharon Beard has yet to deal with any intellectual property violations, according to Dean of Students Mark Davis in an email to the Graphic.
