The Santa Cruz Faculty Association… said the professors lobbied for a 12-year-old California law to guarantee that faculty — not universities — own the intellectual property rights to class lectures and course materials. But before professors can have their courses put on Coursera, they are expected to sign away those rights to the university so the university can give the professors’ work to Coursera, the union said in a March 5 letter to a top labor relations official at Santa Cruz. In these waivers, professors “irrevocably grant the university the absolute right and permission to use” their course content, name, image and likeness. The university’s own contract with Coursera remains neutral and said only that rights will “remain with the applicable instructor and university.”

Read full article [here].
by Ry Rivard, Inside Higher Education.

Posted: March 19th, 2013, by: admin. Categories: . Awaiting Comments.