There's a strike over pensions in the UK university system at the moment and it's brought to light an interesting little argument over intellectual property.
Obviously, if a lecturer is on strike, a scheduled lecture is not going to be delivered. Some universities have tried to force lecturers to deliver cancelled lectures once they return to work, or persuade non striking colleagues to deliver them with varied degrees of success.
But some have tried a different tack, giving students access to the lecture recording of the previous years lecture.
Lecture recordings vary. Some simply record voice or else voice and video somewhat in the style of nineteen seventies Open University recordings. Others record voice and the accompanying powerpoint slides.
Lecture recording systems are usually touted as a revision aid for students, or else as allowing students at multi site institutions access to material delivered at another location. Cynically, it allows students who discover Statistics 1B is timetabled for 0830 on a Monday an extra hour in bed.
Individual universities rules on intellectual property and lecture content all differ slightly.
In many cases they were drawn up some years ago before lecture capture systems were in widespread use, and before the world went digital.
In some cases the university owns the teaching material, some cases the individual owns it, and in some cases the lecture is owned by the university, but handouts, including the powerpoint slides, are owned by the individual.
And some lecture recording products have terms of use that require consent by the lecturer before the material can be reused. And of course there's the case where a teaching assistant delivers a lecture using existing notes and material when the lecturer whose course it is is on sabbatical. We won't talk about MOOCs here, but that's another problem, especially if material from other lecture courses is reused.
Basically it's a very grey area. In fact once you start to poke into it it's a complete nightmare ...
Obviously, if a lecturer is on strike, a scheduled lecture is not going to be delivered. Some universities have tried to force lecturers to deliver cancelled lectures once they return to work, or persuade non striking colleagues to deliver them with varied degrees of success.
But some have tried a different tack, giving students access to the lecture recording of the previous years lecture.
Lecture recordings vary. Some simply record voice or else voice and video somewhat in the style of nineteen seventies Open University recordings. Others record voice and the accompanying powerpoint slides.
Lecture recording systems are usually touted as a revision aid for students, or else as allowing students at multi site institutions access to material delivered at another location. Cynically, it allows students who discover Statistics 1B is timetabled for 0830 on a Monday an extra hour in bed.
Individual universities rules on intellectual property and lecture content all differ slightly.
In many cases they were drawn up some years ago before lecture capture systems were in widespread use, and before the world went digital.
In some cases the university owns the teaching material, some cases the individual owns it, and in some cases the lecture is owned by the university, but handouts, including the powerpoint slides, are owned by the individual.
And some lecture recording products have terms of use that require consent by the lecturer before the material can be reused. And of course there's the case where a teaching assistant delivers a lecture using existing notes and material when the lecturer whose course it is is on sabbatical. We won't talk about MOOCs here, but that's another problem, especially if material from other lecture courses is reused.
Basically it's a very grey area. In fact once you start to poke into it it's a complete nightmare ...
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