Moving Course Materials Online: Intellectual Property rights and responsibilities.

Heather Buffet and Sarah Wiebe, or super-stewards in matters of information and communication have prepared the following detailed document to help us out this week.

What does moving course materials online mean for your Intellectual Property (IP) rights and how can you protect them?

The College’s IP policy states in section 7.1:

 “In contrast to historical business practice, the tradition of academic institutions is to give staff the right to retain ownership of their copyrightable products. This policy protects that traditional right and staff are not obligated to disclose the creation of copyrightable material, even when the product might have commercial value, unless the material was developed under one of the qualifying conditions listed in the next section (7.2).

7.2 Determination of Rights to Copyrightable Intellectual Property

Except as outlined below, the creator of copyrightable intellectual property will retain his or her rights, and the college shall not assert ownership rights. However, creators will be expected to grant non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual licenses to the college for copyrightable material that is developed for college courses or curriculum, so that the college's continued use of such material for educational purposes would not be jeopardized. The college will assert ownership rights to copyrightable intellectual property developed under any of the following circumstances:

• Development was funded as part of an externally sponsored research program under an agreement which allocates rights to the college;

• A staff member was assigned, directed, or specifically funded by the college to develop the material, and the college has negotiated an understanding or formal contract with the creator;

• Material was developed by administrators or other non-faculty employees in the course of employment duties and constitutes work as a condition of employment under Canadian law;

• The material was developed with extraordinary or substantially more use of college resources than would normally be provided for the creator's employment duties. This might occur as disproportionate use of staff time, networks, equipment, or direct funding.”

Analysis:

Contrary to this policy the College has stated to the Union that any materials posted to the LMS (Blackboard) and therefore hosted on College servers becomes property of the college. As we are now being asked to move courses and thus our course materials online we are jeopardizing our IP. We need ways to protect our work.

The easiest step to take is to transfer all materials you have copyright in and put them in a cloud platform or private website where only those with the link can access them. We are suggesting using Google Drive or Microsoft’s OneDrive (but your personal account, not your GBC account) as it provides you with all the relevant Office-type applications like Word and Powerpoint. If you require a different form of application please contact us and we will try our best to find a safe alternative. We also suggest creating a separate Google or Microsoft account for this purpose to keep it separate from your personal email.

Once your materials have been transferred to a cloud sharing platform you can then provide links to these materials via blackboard. Students do not need a Google or Microsoft account to view and download these files.

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If you already have included in your course work any materials that fall under the fair dealing exception you and the college are required by law to delete the materials 30 days after final grades are handed out. Section 30.01(6) is the relevant section but all of 30.01 informs it.

Copyright Act

R.S.C., 1985, c. C-42

30.01 (1) For the purposes of this section, lesson means a lesson, test or examination, or part of one, in which, or during the course of which, an act is done in respect of a work or other subject-matter by an educational institution or a person acting under its authority that would otherwise be an infringement of copyright but is permitted under a limitation or exception under this Act.

Application

(2) This section does not apply so as to permit any act referred to in paragraph (3)(a), (b) or (c) with respect to a work or other subject-matter whose use in the lesson constitutes an infringement of copyright or for whose use in the lesson the consent of the copyright owner is required.

Communication by telecommunication

(3) Subject to subsection (6), it is not an infringement of copyright for an educational institution or a person acting under its authority

o    (a) to communicate a lesson to the public by telecommunication for educational or training purposes, if that public consists only of students who are enrolled in a course of which the lesson forms a part or of other persons acting under the authority of the educational institution;

o    (b) to make a fixation of the lesson for the purpose of the act referred to in paragraph (a); or

o    (c) to do any other act that is necessary for the purpose of the acts referred to in paragraphs (a) and (b).

Participation by telecommunication

(4) A student who is enrolled in a course of which the lesson forms a part is deemed to be a person on the premises of the educational institution when the student participates in or receives the lesson by means of communication by telecommunication under paragraph (3)(a).

Reproducing lessons

(5) It is not an infringement of copyright for a student who has received a lesson by means of communication by telecommunication under paragraph (3)(a) to reproduce the lesson in order to be able to listen to or view it at a more convenient time. However, the student shall destroy the reproduction within 30 days after the day on which the students who are enrolled in the course to which the lesson relates have received their final course evaluations.

Conditions

(6) The educational institution and any person acting under its authority, except a student, shall

(a) destroy any fixation of the lesson within 30 days after the day on which the students who are enrolled in the course to which the lesson relates have received their final course evaluations;

(b) take measures that can reasonably be expected to limit the communication by telecommunication of the lesson to the persons referred to in paragraph (3)(a);

(c) take, in relation to the communication by telecommunication of the lesson in digital form, measures that can reasonably be expected to prevent the students from fixing, reproducing or communicating the lesson other than as they may do under this section; and

(d) take, in relation to a communication by telecommunication in digital form, any measure prescribed by regulation.

 Analysis:

Section 30.01 is intended to make sure that the "communication" right of copyright holders is not a barrier to distance education. In other words, it puts distance education students on an even footing with a live classroom experience. The section is not solely about distance education, but about all lesson communication. It allows teachers to communicate digital lessons for students, enrolled in an in-person course. The word "lesson" is defined in Section 30.01: "For the purposes of this section, “lesson” means a lesson, test or examination, or part of one, in which, or during the course of which, an act is done in respect of a work or other subject-matter by an educational institution or a person acting under its authority that would otherwise be an infringement of copyright but is permitted under a limitation or exception under this Act." Under the Copyright Act, the owner of copyright in a work ordinarily has the sole right to communicate that work to the public. Section 30.01 allows teachers to communicate a lesson that includes copyright material without needing permission from the copyright owner, or the payment of royalties, as long as the audience is "only students who are enrolled in a course of which the lesson forms a part, or of other persons acting under the authority of the educational institution". The student is permitted to make a copy of the lesson and keep the copy until 30 days after the final evaluation (final report card) is received. Both the student and the educational institution are required to destroy any recording of the lesson within 30 days after the students who are enrolled in the course receive their final evaluations. The need for section 30.01 is largely due to the structure of the Copyright Act. The right to make a copy and the right to communicate a copy are separate rights, each belonging to the copyright owner.Section 30.01 was intended to make sure that copyright compliant lessons could be fixed and communicated to students and still remain copyright compliant. This is intended to better enable modern forms of distance and home learning. The section is also technologically neutral as to the original lesson. It does not matter whether the lesson is in print or electronic form originally.

To bulk delete materials from your course shell please follow the instructions from Blackboard.