[ The following is a draft of a statement that is to be sent by the UT System Chancellor's Faculty Advisory Council to the UT System Chancellor with a request that it appear in the Handbook of Operating Procedures for all 15 UT System components. ]
The University of Texas System upholds the tradition of endowing its faculty with the responsibility of designing the curriculum. "Curriculum" means not only the details of the subject matter presented to students, but also teaching methodologies, forms of assessment, and modes of delivery of that subject matter. Faculty are accountable to each other and to their administrators for upholding the highest standards of excellence in the educational experiences of students. As new educational technologies extend the learning environment beyond campus boundaries, and as multiple sources of educational materials proliferate, it is vital that policies be enacted to establish the roles of administrators and faculty in critically reviewing proposed course offerings. The content, quality of presentation, assessment criteria, and the clarity and suitability of the educational objectives must be deemed acceptable by appropriate faculty and administrators.
Distance education courses (especially the first-time offerings of such courses) may require commitments of time, effort, skill, and resources beyond those required for traditionally structured courses. The nature of courses, appropriate teaching methodologies, course content, and faculty expertise should be taken into consideration in course development, implementation, faculty workload assessment and compensation.
Distance Education (DE) is but one step in the evolution of college education. New structures will be required to manage the production and delivery of these courses since the complexity of these activities and the investments in equipment make team work essential. New management structures will also be required to catalog existing and planned DE materials available worldwide, perform market research for DE courses that might be developed at UT Dallas, market UT Dallas DE courses, interface with the rest of the DE community (worldwide), train course designers and presenters, manage production facilities, aid presenters with graphics and other courseware, recruit and train all technical support staff, and keep us up-to-date with improvements in equipment and software. It should be unnecessary, however, to add new structures to manage the pedagogical aspects of DE.
This document addresses only those aspects of these functions that are of interest to faculty.
Faculty interests relate to the control of the quality of courses offered to students, the compensation for faculty involvement in the production of course materials and for course management and delivery, and the ownership of copyright and associated rights to amend and dispose of course materials. This policy governs quality control and compensation. Copyright matters are dealt with in The UT System Administrative Policy Regarding Creation, Use and Distribution of Telecourse Materials: (UT System Telecourse Policy). See a brief summary at the end of this document.
It is assumed in the following that all educational units at UT Dallas already have in place structures for the development and oversight of the curriculum and for the evaluation of teaching effectiveness, assessment methodologies, and general educational outcomes. We will refer to these structures as "curriculum committees" and "teaching effectiveness committees". An "educational unit" is the department, program, division, or school, at which these structures operate. Curriculum committees submit proposals for new courses and other curricular changes to the Committee on Educational Policy (CEP), which, in turn, reports to the Faculty Senate. The senate and CEP delegates its oversight authority to the unit-level committees for most minor changes in a unit's curriculum. This is likely to continue to be true for smooth transitions between traditional styled courses and DE and other hi-tech courses, although the Senate's and CEP's interests in these developments must not be precluded.
Faculty members have an interest in all materials presented to their students. Therefore, all courses presented to the students of a particular educational unit, whether traditional, by DE, or otherwise, must gain the approval of, and be monitored by, that unit's curriculum committee and teaching effectiveness committee. Although there may be a great deal of similarity in the catalog descriptions of courses at our universities, the different missions of the universities create vast differences in the actual materials presented and the concepts and skills to be mastered by the students. Selection of suitable courses therefore requires a review process.
DE courses that are either new to the unit, or that have undergone substantial revision, should be subject to review. The curriculum committee must determine to its satisfaction that a course fits well into the unit's curriculum. In particular, the subject matter must be relevant to the curriculum, must be presented at the appropriate level for the intended audience, and it must cover the subject matter in the required depth. There may be other aspects of a course that are deemed essential for its success within a particular unit. For example, a class on criminal justice might require the Socratic approach in which students must learn to think and respond quickly to a particular question; a management class might require a case study approach; a certain kind of group socialization might be required in a psychology class.
The committee on teaching effectiveness must monitor all courses, whatever their source and delivery mode, and must document problems and present them in a timely manner to the appropriate faculty committee or administrative unit. Uniformity of treatment of courses implies that a truly bad delivery of a course should receive serious and urgent remedial action, possibly including cancellation or replacement of the source. For example, DE course might be abandoned in favor of a local instructor or even vice-versa.
The faculty of a particular educational unit might have an interest in courses produced by its faculty, not necessarily intended for a UT Dallas audience. Such courses could advertise our strengths and broadcast our weaknesses. For this reason, each educational unit should decide the level of review and oversight that it wishes to apply to such courses.
In most cases, the costs of training faculty, purchasing and maintaining the necessary equipment and software, the technical support services, and reproducing the materials delivered to the students, must be borne by the University. If partnerships are formed with industrial or commercial DE producers, other arrangements may be possible. Authors should not be expected to fund any part of the costs of producing and presenting a hi-tech course, unless there is a prior agreement signed by those authors.
It is now widely accepted that course production costs are likely to be much higher for DE courses than for traditional courses. Some estimate that about 20 hours of faculty time will be needed on average to convert 1 hour of an existing course to the simplest DE format. There are vast differences between the times estimated for preparation of an interactive video presentation, a web-based presentation, and a multimedia production.
Administrators must plan for the additional burden on the faculty involved in DE course production. Faculty must consider the impact on their careers, both potentially positive and negative, and administrators must be prepared to compensate faculty for these sacrifices. Compensation can take the form of release time, workload reassignment, and/or monetary rewards. These issues must be clearly addressed in the agreement.
In order to protect the rights of both the author(s) and the university, an agreement, hereafter referred to as "the agreement," should be signed, listing all the likely costs, before work on a course begins. Since DE is a new endeavor, underestimates are likely to be common at first. In good faith, the University must cover reasonable planning oversights.
Although the copyright for DE materials legally rests with their intellectual author(s), if the University contributes resources in the form of equipment or technical help, or if the authors receive compensation from the University, the agreement may assign a fraction of, or the full copyright to the University, or it may assign some fraction of any royalties to the University.
If third party companies are involved, or individuals are hired to help with the production, the situation becomes more complicated. Contracts with such additional parties must be signed, determining any further royalty sharing. The Office of General Council must be consulted before such arrangements are made.
The authors usually retain the right to amend and destroy their materials. In some cases the authors may insist on destruction of all materials related to a particular DE course the moment the course is completed. This is typical of interactive television courses, but less likely with web based and multimedia productions. All these aspects of DE course production and presentation must be covered by the agreement.
See a sample agreement at: Sample Telecourse Agreement
Here is an excerpt from the sample agreement listing the main copyright options:
[This section's grant of rights will vary depending upon the circumstances. For example, although the Author may be the copyright owner under law, the University may have initiated the creation of a work and may wish to have unlimited rights to use it in which case a complete transfer of the copyright from the Author to University would be appropriate (alternative 1a). If the Author initiated creation of a work, but requires extraordinary resources from the University, the grant of rights to the University may be more limited (alternative 1b). Sometimes a work may be the result of such collaboration that a roughly equal sharing of the resulting work would be appropriate (alternative 1c). Completely novel arrangements may be appropriate as well.]
Assignment of Copyright. The Author hereby grants, transfers and assigns to the University for the full term of this agreement the copyright, including without limitation the right to copy, distribute, display, perform, transmit, publish and sell throughout the world the educational course materials entitled: [name of work] (hereinafter called "Work"). This assignment of copyright also includes, without limitation, the rights to the Work listed in Paragraph 8 below, with authority to license those rights in all countries and in all languages.
License for Nonprofit Educational Uses. The Author hereby grants to the University for the full term of this agreement the non- exclusive right to copy, distribute, display, perform, transmit, and publish for nonprofit educational purposes the educational course materials entitled: [name of work] (hereinafter called "Work"). [If this allocation of rights is appropriate, delete Paragraphs 8 and 10(c) below.]
Non-exclusive Commercial License. The Author hereby grants to the University for the full term of this agreement the non-exclusive right to copy, distribute, display, perform, transmit, publish and sell throughout the world the educational course materials entitled: [name of work] (hereinafter called "Work"). This license grant also includes, without limitation, the rights to the Work listed in Paragraph 8 below, with authority to license those rights in all countries and in all languages. [If this allocation of rights is appropriate, delete the word "sole" from Paragraph 8 below, and delete Paragraph 10(c).]
The faculty member's role in supervising the delivery of a DE course can vary considerably. At one extreme, the required role may be similar to that of a teaching assistant. At another extreme, the faculty member might have to train and supervise mentors at distant sites, organize and supervise online discussion groups, travel to distant sites regularly to meet students, carefully examine assignments and test results, and make appropriate adjustments to the pace and substance of the course. The appropriate level of compensation for each level of course supervision must be negotiated between the unit administrator and the faculty member(s) concerned.
The University shall pay for travel by the faculty member(s) to remote sites for the purposes of mentoring tutors and meeting students.
Assignment of all courses to faculty should be voluntary in as much as the teaching needs of the educational unit can be met, with the exception that, for the production of a DE class, the involved faculty member(s) and the University must have an agreement in place before the assignment can be commenced. Failure to come to an agreement because of unreasonable demands by a faculty member could result in disciplinary measures under the Faculty Conduct Policy. Faculty claiming relief from unreasonable demands to take part in DE or other hi-tech courses may seek it through the grievance policy.
Educational units should already have in place a system for the allocation of teaching duties to faculty. With some modification, this scheme should suffice for DE and other hi-tech courses. The system must take into account the training, wishes, and suitability of faculty for the particular style of delivery proposed. While it may be common for traditional courses to be assigned as punishments and rewards, no one should risk assigning a DE course to someone who clearly is not equipped or is not interested in such a venture. There may also be ill-equipped faculty who want to teach by DE. When there is any doubt, those faculty should be asked to produce a small pilot of 30 minutes, or so, for review by the teaching effectiveness committee.
Here are relevant excerpts from the Telecourse policy referred to above:
A. Copyright.
The U.T. System's Intellectual Property Policy ("Policy") allocates the ownership of copyright in scholarly works created by faculty members in their fields of expertise to the faculty member. Faculty members thus hold copyright in Telecourse materials they create on their own initiative in the course of the performance of their teaching responsibilities. U.T. System's Policy allocates ownership of copyright in works created under contract or as works for hire to the Board of Regents ("Board"). Thus, Telecourses will belong to the Board if created by non-faculty employees within the scope of their employment, or under a specific contractual arrangement or other special relationship. Telecourses created by faculty members as a condition of their employment fall into the category of works for hire or works created by an employee within the scope of employment; thus, copyright in such works is owned by the Board. Telecourses created jointly by faculty authors and others whose contributions would be works for hire will be jointly owned by the faculty author and the Board. Any owner of copyright in a Telecourse may secure copyright registration; joint owners may, but do not have to, agree to bear responsibility for enforcement of the copyright.
Faculty members have a responsibility to meet the reasonable needs of their currently enrolled students, including those needs best addressed by the use of technologies to make class materials readily available. For example, if recordings may be needed by remote or handicapped students, they should be created in the ordinary course of teaching and made available under reasonable circumstances. Notwithstanding this basic responsibility, the creation and use of Telecourse materials intended for use beyond the current semester or for commercial purposes should be the subject of contractual agreement between the faculty member and the component.
Faculty may receive teaching load credit for duties performed in the best interests of the University's instructional program, including Telecourse development.
Faculty members should retain the right to update, edit or otherwise revise Telecourse materials that become out of date, or, in certain circumstances, should place a time limit upon the use of Telecourse materials that are particularly time sensitive, regardless of who owns copyright in the Telecourse. These rights and limitations must be negotiated in advance of the creation of the Telecourse, should be reasonable under the circumstances, and should be reduced to writing.
In accordance with U.T. System Policy, faculty members shall receive all royalties that may accrue from the commercialization of Telecourses they create on their own initiative. On the other hand, the Board retains all royalties that may accrue from the commercialization of Telecourses created by faculty members pursuant to contract or as a work for hire, including Telecourses created as a condition of employment. Copyright law permits joint owners to pursue commercialization either jointly or separately, with accounting. Other circumstances may require review on a case-by-case basis (such as a Telecourse initiated by a faculty member but using substantial component or U.T. System facilities.)
Liabilities may be incurred with respect to the inclusion of materials in Telecourses other than materials created by the Telecourse author and inclusion of voices or images of persons in the Telecourse, including audience members and guest lecturers. It is the policy of U.T. System that all faculty and staff comply with the law, including copyright and privacy laws; therefore, creators of Telecourses must obtain all permissions and releases necessary to avoid infringing copyright or invading the personal rights of others.