Information on Athabasca University and IP

As an FYI:

Late last year I took the Athabasca University course COMP 347: Computer Networks I. Through the process of that course I was assigned a paper to write, and it was to be in the form of an "eLesson," an instructional document. I was also told to write a sample quiz with a solution file based on the content of the document. According to that course's coordinator, the purpose of having students write such documents was to attempt to teach an aspect of the course to future students.

I delivered the document as asked and included with it a copyright notice. The general terms of this copyright notice was that Athabasca had to credit the documents to me if they were used in teaching, they could not modify the document unless they indicated that it was not in its original form, and they could not sell copies of the document for profit. The way I see it, the school should not be using me to write their textbooks for them, nor should it be making money off of my work. The coordinator told me that in order to receive credit for the assignment, I had to remove the notice, and I did as he suggested.

Based on the coordinator's refusal to accept the documents with a grant of copyright, it appears that he still intends to use the documents for instruction. Had he not been wanting to publish the documents himself, he should have accepted the documents as they were originally submitted.

I feel that it is incredibly poor form for a representative of any institution of higher learning to expect that students' intellectual property belongs to any one except those students. It has long been an expectation in academia that a student owns whatever work he creates, and that instructors should not only refrain from stealing it, but also refrain from threatening students with a failing grade unless they give the IP to that instructor.

I am going to be writing a letter about this to higher ups at Athabasca, and I will post the information of any response that I get, but I am a strong proponent of an individual's rights with his own property. I am going to be fighting as hard as I can to prevent the school from stealing my property, as I never gave it to them. I suggest that any one who creates a work for school be careful that the school does not try to steal the work, claiming it as its own. This is apparently especially true with Athabasca University and this course.

If any one takes this course in the future and notices a document teaching the network layer of TCP/IP using a pizza delivery metaphore, I would appreciate being notified as it may be without permission.

FWIW, besides this one issue, I found taking courses at Athabasca to be a very positive experience.

Daniel

 

I presume that this must be fairly standard at universities.

The problem of assigning credit for student work in a university of 30-40,000 students would be overwhelming.

How to eliminate the problem? Accept no copywritten work.

There also is an old school assumption that the work of the student is the work of the teacher. I would doubt that every brush stroke or even the majority of the brush strokes in the Cistine Chapel belong to Michaelangelo.

An original idea in an undergrad computer class. Surely you jest.

 

Do check that you didn't assign copyright of all works produced to fulfill course requirements to the university when you registered. Most universities over here routinely have such a clause in their statutes.

Angela

 

This is idiocy run amuck. The correct way to eliminate the problem of crediting authors with their own work is not to attempt to republish it at all. What you suggest is similar to saying that a car dealer should never sell a car with a VIN on it because it makes it too hard to trace back to its owner. Making it easier to steal works is not the answer. Oh, and btw, it's copyrighted, not copywritten.

I have never heard this ASSumption. In fact, I have heard quite the opposite from friends, family, and colleagues in academia. The situation is different when the student works for the school, as it always is with employers owning works. What is more normal is a teacher helping a student to publish his own work. Could this be a Canadian ASSumption?

Are you related to an instructor at Athabasca? Strangely your comments mirror his very closely. Graduate, undergraduate, high school, it really doesn't matter: I wrote a document, so I own it. No one should have the right to steal it. By this rational, an undergrad lit prof can publish an anthology of his students' poems just be cause they're undergrads? Get real here. Level of education is not a license to steal.

Daniel

 

FWIW...

As promised, I contacted several "higher ups" at AU via snail mail and included my eMail address. I recently received the following reply from the department chair:

"I received your letter regarding your copyright claim for your assignment in COMP347. I discussed this issue with [the instructor] and he assured me that he has not used your COMP347 assignment in the past and he does not intent to use your assignment in the future.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact me."

This is not them still claiming their position, nor is it conceding to mine, but hopefully my copy rights will be maintained. I urge others to protect their intellectual property as well.

Daniel

 

A couple of Canadian pages on the subject:

Memorial University of Newfoundland

http://www.mun.ca/univrel/gazette/1997-98/Oct.2/news/n12-copy.htm

U. Waterloo

http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infoucal/9697/UW/wrk_ownership.html

University of California system-wide policy is essentially the same as the Canadian position

http://www.ucop.edu/ott/copyr.html

The consensus certainly seems to suggest that the copyright for student work remains with the student.

 

If the object of your reply is to determine who can be the biggest ass, I will defer to you. A bit aggressive in our reply weren't we.

I have no special knowledge in the area but I have heard of professors refusing to accept assignments with a copyright notice and ancient tradition suggests that the work of the student and teacer are inseparable.

I have been an undergrad student and taught undergrad students and simply find it interesting that one would think his work worthy of protection.

By the way, your victory over AU sounds to me like a brush off that was conceived with much joviality and laughter at the faculty club.

Keep up those original thoughts and take a pill.

 

Hi

Intellectual property is a serious subject and one in which I have been asked for advice many times, including once last week at a University sub-commitee.

Contributions to a published document are protected by copyright of the authors. A recent case concerned a e-publishing company putting its own copyright symbol on every page but not one for the author's even on the 'verso' of a title page.

As an undergraduate I wrote many essays though I doubt if one of them was publishable except in a 'how not to' book. However, the principle is not altered. If one were it should be credited to the student and not the instructor. That is theft if is. In DL I do not believe assignments are other than a temptation to cheat, so we do not use them at EBS.

Exams perform another function. Under University rules the exams are copyright of the University. It permits their reproduction as learning devices (at least the good ones). It prevents mischief where students challenge a grading, creating that awful nonsense of negotiating over grades (nothing more pernicious and more guaranteed to create grade inflation to the detriment of standards). If you want a better grade write a better essay.

If published as exams, plus the faculty answer, plus a good student answer, they reduce appeals and provide useful guides to students. Under University copyright this can be done without a problem. If copyright were retained by students it adds a layer of complication, of which there is enough in universities.

Essays, if used in DL (but not at EBS) should not be used by faculty for their own promotion (that is theft) but may be used in the name of the University, not individuals, for teaching. Its rules should make this clear, and if, despite the rules, the University penalises a student who marks his copy as copyright, it can obviate this by accepting that under international author's copyright, the author as a moral right to his or her own work and to be identified as its author. This is competely independent of his or her right to income from such teaching aids, or his or her rigths to withhold such essays from publication. I think a regard for moral rights would solve this problem.

 

My reply may have been a bit aggressive, but your post was a bit offensive. It basically boiled down to you telling me that it was okay for people to steal my work, and that as an undergrad, I was too....what? Inexperienced? Stupid? To create something worth stealing anyway. While I was an undergrad student, I'm not fresh out of high school. I've been working in my field for several years and have quite a bit of knowledge. Assuming that just because I'm in such a program I can't create something worthwhile seems naive. Again, it's like saying that no undergrad poets or painters are any good. I'd be interested in the reactions you get from walking up to a 100 people you don't know and telling them that they're stupid and it's okay to steal from them. They might get aggressive as well.

Again, I have not heard of this ancient tradition, and apparently neither have many other people in this forum. Considering that I wrote the document without any help from him, how could it have been his? I'd like to see some one tell my painter friend that when she was getting her BFA it would have been okay for her professors to take her paintings and sell them for profit.

What I find interesting is that on one hand you tell me that I'm not good enough to create something useful, yet on the other you say that it's okay to steal it. If it's worth stealing, then it's worthy of protection...eh?

I have no doubts that the staff at AU were trying to brush me off, but it doesn't change the fact that they have agreed not to steal from me. I never claimed it any more of a victory than that, but that is all I wanted. As for hanging around at the "faculty club," considering the nature of AU, I highly doubt that that happened. I’d like to point out again that I never told them not to use the document, but that they couldn’t sell it for money.

Keep calling people stupid, as I’m sure that will help you go far in life!

Daniel

 

I called someone stupid?? I don't think so unless you employ mental telepathy.