The document discusses an academic policy framework for technology-mediated content, focusing on relationships among academic institutions, faculty, and external parties, and addresses key issues such as governance, conflicts of interest, academic freedom, and intellectual property. It emphasizes the need for clear guidelines regarding ownership, rights to content, and data privacy within online courses. The framework advocates for strong institutional authority in managing technology-mediated content while ensuring faculty have rights for future modifications and derivative works.

1. AN ACADEMIC POLICY
FRAMEWORK FOR
TECHNOLOGY-MEDIATED
CONTENT
Report published in November, 2016
Randal C. Picker
Lawrence S. Bacow
Nancy Kopans

2. WHAT IS TECHNOLOGY-
MEDIATED CONTENT?
Massive Open Online Courses
• Integrated courses.
• Courses with modular components.

3. THREE CONTEXTS FOR
TECHNOLOGY-MEDIATED
CONTENT
1. The relationship between the platform provider
and the institution.
-Academic institution as content producer
-Academic institution as content user
2. The relationship between the faculty member and
the home institution.
3. The relationship between the faculty member and
outsiders.

4. FOUR ISSUES RAISED
IN EACH CONTEXT
Online courses—whether as produced by a
university or consumed by a university—raise
issues in key areas:
1. University Governance
2. Faculty conflicts of interest and conflicts of
commitment
3. Academic freedom
4. Intellectual property

5. FOCUS ON
INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY
“Authoring” technology-enabled educational
materials typically requires substantial
university resources:
• Faculty responsible for content
• Producer
• Instructional designer
• Web designer
• Camera and sound operators
• Editors and software developers.
What rules apply to technology-mediated
education?

6. TECHNOLOGY-MEDIATED CONTENT
RAISES MANY IP QUESTIONS
• Who owns or controls the IP represented by these new courses—the
faculty, the institution, or some combination?
• What about third-party content embedded in the course, such as videos?
• Who should be responsible if the rights of third-party content owners
are breached?

7. TECHNOLOGY-MEDIATED CONTENT
RAISES MANY IP QUESTIONS, CONT’
• Once created, what rules or principles should govern modification of
future editions of such courses?
• What should be the respective role of the faculty and the institution in
approving such modifications?
• How should the university name and brand be managed?
• How should revenue created by these course be split among the relevant
parties?
Also issues regarding data privacy. Online, personalized learning can track
student responses. Valuable data for pedagogy. Risk of privatization

8. THREE CONTEXTS

9. I.A. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
PLATFORM PROVIDER AND THE INSTITUTION
Academic Institution as Content Producer
Institutional norms that prevailed prior to the digital era should
continue to guide the use of the institutional brand and the ownership of
the content as between the platform and the institution.
Academic institutions should have broad authority in structuring arrangements between the institution and
the platform when the institution is providing content for the of external users.
Strong internal scrutiny is likely given institution’s name attached to the content.

10. I.B. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
PLATFORM PROVIDER AND THE INSTITUTION
Academic Institution as Content Consumer
Continuing application of institutional norms. Core role of institution is
certifying that students have met a particular standard, recognized
through diplomas bearing the institution’s name.
Academic institutions should have full rights to use the data associated with the technology-mediated content
and will need to ensure student privacy with regard to those data.

11. II. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE
FACULTY MEMBER AND THE HOME
INSTITUTION
• Key differences in producing books and journals vs. T-MC, a team
production. Should application of copyright in T-MC be different?
• Patents developed through faculty work using university resources are
often assigned to the university, with reasonable division of royalties.
• Given the scale of institutional investment, a cost recovery and royalty
sharing arrangement is likely.
• And, there may be a need to re-envision who assumes responsibility for
course content.

12. HOW SHOULD
RIGHT BE
DETERMINED IF
RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN THE
INSTITUTION
AND FACULTY
MEMBER
CHANGES?
What if professor is no longer employed by the
university?
• Can course still be taught at prior institution?
• Can it be taught at new institution?
• Can it be modified?
• What types of attribution are appropriate?
Academic institutions need sufficient
rights in the T-MC to ensure resources
will be provided to create and sustain that
content
• Further use of the course by prior institution.
• Faculty need derivative works rights so as not to limit
creation of new materials at new institution.

13. III. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
THE FACULTY MEMBER AND
OUTSIDERS • University seeks to hire a professor at
another institution to record a series
of lectures.
• A traditional academic textbook
publisher expands its offering and
creates a video coursepack platform.
• A university offers an executive
education program at its business
school. A third-party firm asks the
pr0fessor to provide content for its
online executive education program.

14. III. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
THE FACULTY MEMBER AND
OUTSIDERS • Potential brand conflict issues can
arise if the videos are created and
distributed without institutional
permission.
• But traditionally, faculty have some
latitude to spend time on outside
professional activities (though usually
not re teaching at another institution).
• Issues of academic freedom and
conflicts.

15. 3 CONTEXT WHERE TECHNOLOGY-
MEDIATED CONTENT CAN RAISE IP
ISSUES
I. The relationship
between the platform
provider and the
institution
2. The relationship
between the faculty
member and the home
institution.
3. The relationship
between the faculty
member and outsiders

16. ITHAKA is a not-for-profit organization that helps the academic
community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record
and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit
digital library of academic
journals, books, and
primary sources.
Ithaka S+R is a not-for-profit
research and consulting
service that helps academic,
cultural, and publishing
communities thrive in the
digital environment.
Portico is a not-for-profit
preservation service for
digital publications, including
electronic journals, books,
and historical collections.
Artstor provides 2+ million
high-quality images and
digital asset management
software to enhance
scholarship and teaching.

17. NANCY KOPANS
GENERAL COUNSEL
Nancy.Kopans@ithaka.org
2 RECTOR STREET
18TH FLOOR
NEW YORK, NY 10006
TEL 212 358.6400
FAX 212 358.6499
ithaka.org