Who owns the course? Online composition courses in an era of changing intellectual property policies

Abstract

This article examines existing copyright law, the ambiguous case law concerning copyrightable material and educators, university policies toward patent and copyright law, and the changing nature of educational institutions in the 1990s to consider the question of who “owns” an online composition course, or any course for that matter, in the late twentieth century. I argue that composition instructors need to consider the following issues as they design and revise courses with a significant online component. Who has historically and contractually controlled course materials created by faculty members? Who owns course materials developed for particular courses? Why should the transition to networked computing environments change the nature of course materials ownership? Are there substantiative differences between materials created for a traditional composition course and an online course? The answers to these questions may fundamentally change the ways instructors create and use instructional materials.