The University of Alabama
Steering Committee Meeting Agenda 

STEERING COMMITTEE AGENDA

November 13, 2001

3:30pm—307 Ferguson

Role Call and Quorum Check (Keith Woodbury)

Approval/Corrections to the Minutes for October 9 (Keith Woodbury)

Action Items

Senate position on release of student evaluation

Harry Hopkin’s position

President Sorensen’s position

Intellectual Property Rights Policy Revisions

Resolution proposing the privatization of the Greek System

President’s Report (Norm Baldwin)

Reactions of the President and Provost

Commendation resolution s

Greek Desegregation

SGA Diversity Resolution

Domestic Partnership Benefits Actions in Faculty and Staff Benefits Committee

Report survey findings to the faculty?

Vice President’s Report (Steve Miller)

Secretary’s Report (Keith Woodbury)

Reports from Senate Committees

Senate Operations (Steve Miller and Harry Price)

Report on Senate Attendance

Ombudsman language for the Bylaws

Implementation of "Shared Governance Document" principles

Clarification of Senate Eligibility and Senate Reapportionment (before next election)

Mediation Document

Academic Affairs (Don Desmet and Beth Macauley)

Proposal that student pictures accommodate class rosters

Inconsistent tenure and promotion standards between departments and colleges

Financial Affairs (Terry Royed and Keith Woodbury)

Health insurance for graduate students

Faculty Life (Jerry Rosiek )

Maternity leave policy for the Faculty Handbook

Employment statement that includes gender and sexual orientation

Hiring and retention of minority faculty (Knight case)

Emeritus College

Planning and Operations (Bill Keel and John Mason)

Final Exams: Tuesday due date for final exam grades; Saturday finals when Test Services are closed; Move Saturday finals up a week.

Fall break

ACHE data presentation (instructional/non-instructional split; TA data)

Environmental Audit—should we do one?

Research and Service (Bing Blewitt)

Library fines and book replacement policy for faculty

Student Affairs (Dexter Gordon and Alvin Winters)

Reports from University Standing and Other Committees

Legislative Agenda Committee Report

New Business

Old Business

Announcements

Our monthly meeting with the Provost will be at 3:30 Thursday, November 15th , in the Provost’s conference room

 

To: The Steering Committee

From: Terry Royed and Keith Woodbury, The Financial Affairs Committee

In Spring, 2000, an ad hoc "Intellectual Property Rights Committee" met, at the request of the Provost, to revise Appendix H (on intellectual property rights) of the Faculty Handbook in light of the increased use of Internet course materials. They presented draft revisions in April, 2000; the Council of Deans then met and revised their draft. Immediately below is this revised draft; the main change made by the Council of Deans was to add #5 and #6. The Provost presented this to the Faculty Senate over Summer, 2001, and the Fincancial Affairs Committee has now come up with a response to this draft. Our response is presented below the Council of Deans’ draft. As you can see, our committee’s main concern was with the proposed #5 and #6.

 

REVISION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS COMMITTEE'S

APRIL 2000 DRAFT OF

APPENDIX H

DETERMINATION OF. RIGHTS IN COPYRIGHTABLE MATERIALS

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

It is the policy of The University of Alabama to encourage the creation of copyrightable works by its faculty and employees. Such works are an important contribution to the University's pedagogical, scholarly, and public service missions.

A. Ownership of Copyright

(1) Except as provided below, faculty and employees of the University who are the authors of copyrightable works shall own the copyrights in those works, regardless of whether those works constitute "works for hire" as defined in the Copyright Act. "Employees" include students who receive salaries, grants, or other compensation from the University.

(2) "Copyrightable works" includes, without limitation, computer software, online course materials, multimedia, films and videotapes, in so far as they fall within the subject matter of copyright. To the extent that such works embody patentable inventions, rights to those inventions shall be determined by The University of Alabama Patent Policy (Faculty Handbook, April 1999, Appendix G), or as the same is amended.

B. Exceptions

(1) If the University contributes extraordinary resources to the creation of a copyrightable work, the respective rights of the author and University to that work should be negotiated at the time such resources are provided. "Extraordinary resources" means facilities, equipment, funding, release or re-assigned time or other assistance exceeding the resources normally provided to faculty or employees in a particular department. It shall be the responsibility of the dean at the time such "extraordinary resources" are provided, to notify the faculty member and negotiate the terms. Those terms may include assignment of copyright, license of rights, or division of royalties.

(2) If a copyrightable work is funded, in whole or part, by a contract or grant from an agency outside the University, copyright shall be assigned in accordance with the terms of the contract or grant.

(3) If a copyrightable work is commissioned by the University, meaning that a faculty member or employee receives supplemental compensation from the University to prepare a specific copyrightable work, rights to that work shall be according to terms negotiated at the time of the commission. Those terms may include assignment of copyright, license of rights, or division of royalties.

(4) Copyright in "institutional works" shall be owned by the University. An "institutional work" means either (a) a work prepared at the direction of the University for the use of the University in conducting its own affairs (for example, University handbooks, press releases, and software tools); or (b) a work that cannot reasonably be attributed to a single author or group of authors because it is the result of contributions or revisions by numerous faculty members, employees, or students of the University. Textbooks and other course materials prepared by a faculty member shall not be considered "institutional works."

(5) When University faculty or employees author non-institutional works, normally no royalty or other consideration shall be paid to the faculty member or employee when that non-institutional work is used for instruction at the University. Non-institutional works shall not be sold, leased, rented or otherwise used by the faculty member or employee in a manner that competes in a substantial way with the for-credit offerings of the University unless that transaction has received the prior approval o the Office for Academic Affairs.

(6) When non-institutional work is courseware, electronic or otherwise, or computer software, the faculty member or employee shall have the right to take and use the work upon departure from the University, subiect to a Perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free license for the University to make, use, edit, reproduce, and distribute copies of and to prepare derivative works from the work for use by the University in teaching, scholarship, and research.

(7) Any copyrightable work of potential commercial value should be disclosed at the earliest practicable time by the author to the author's department chair or immediate administrative supervisor. For those works that are owned by the University or in which the University has an interest, the author shall cooperate with officials of the University and of any organization to whom the University assigns rights to such works in the registering of copyrights as well as in licensing the works.

C. Administration

Except as otherwise set forth, the administration of these policies shall be the responsibility of the Office for Academic Affairs.

DRAFT

To: Nancy S. Barrett, Provost

From: Financial Affairs Committee, Faculty Senate

Re: Draft revision of Faculty Handbook Appendix H

The committee considered the draft revisions to Appendix H of the Faculty Handbook at its first meeting of the year, on September 4. We then agreed to have Ron Rogers come and explain why the Council of Deans added points #5 and #6 under "Exceptions" to the draft completed by the Intellectual Property Rights Committee in April, 2000. Dr. Rogers explained that these points were designed to address a situation that arose at this university in which an entire degree program had been developed for distance education, and a faculty member sold this entire degree program to another university; the added language was thus to offer protection to university degree programs.

After meeting with Dr. Rogers, the committee raised the following questions and concerns about points #5 and #6:

Point #5:

a. The first sentence as written would seem to suggest that faculty members can't get royalties for books they have written; clearly, this was not the intent. We speculated that the intent was that "no royalty.... shall be paid by the university to the faculty member..." However, we don’t understand what situation this sentence is designed to address, and so we don't see it as necessary.

b. Apparently the second sentence of #5 was designed to address the case raised by Dr. Rogers, and the committee agrees with this intent. However, the wording of the sentence could be interpreted to preclude the publication of a textbook sold and used at a competing institution, and thus the wording is problematic. In addition, existing language in the Faculty Handbook on supplemental compensation seems to address whatever scenarios #5 had in mind. Chapter Three, Part VII of the handbook states the following: "The policy on supplemental compensation requires faculty members to obtain prior agreement from officials of the University before undertaking activities that provide supplemental compensation for professionally-related activities."

Point #6:

a. What exactly is meant by "courseware"? A definition and/or examples would help.

b. Many members of the committee expressed a concern that, to the extent that we understand #6 correctly, it seems to infringe on faculty rights. The following scenario was raised: suppose a faculty member develops an internet course for "distance learning." If this faculty member leaves the University, it is our view that the course they developed should leave with them, just as it does with a traditional course. Where are the limits of point #6? Does it cover course notes, outlines, power point presentations, …?

c. Point #6 seems to suggest that the university could edit an internet course as they see fit, and continue to offer it indefinitely. The committee believes this would be wrong. Further, it raises an issue of authorship; would the course developed by Faculty Member X be edited, and then still presented as having been developed by Faculty Member X? This would be objectionable. Equally objectionable, would the course developed by Faculty Member X not be changed at all, but then presented as someone else's course? This would be plagiarism.

d. Another scenario might involve a video-taped course. Point #6 would seem to suggest that the university could continue to use a videotaped course after the instructor for the course had left, with no compensation to that instructor beyond his or her normal pay for the term in which it was originally taught. Our committee objects to this as well.

Based on all of the above, our committee agreed that a) points #5 and #6 are vague and ambiguous, and therefore would introduce more problems than they would solve, and b) to the extent that we understand the intent of #6, we disagree with it. Therefore, we recommend the following:

1. To address the situation raised by Dr. Rogers, add a clarifying sentence at the end of #4: "Degree programs shall always be considered ‘institutional work.’"

2. Modify #5 to read:

"Selling, renting or leasing video or online courses requires the prior approval of the Office for Academic Affairs, consistent with the supplemental compensation policy in Chapter Three, Part VII of the Handbook."

3. Eliminate #6 entirely.

We believe these proposed changes eliminate the ambiguities and questions raised above, while protecting both the University’s and the faculty’s interests.