Policy

Students in my IPT 692R: Open Education Policy Seminar have finished the two policy backgrounders they worked on during our extremely compressed summer session. These reviews are written specifically for a BYU audience (with lots of references to BYU’s mission, institutional objectives, and appropriate scriptures), but I thought the information in these documents might be of interest to the broader open education community. So without further ado: Open Access Policy Backgrounder ...

Open Education News and Open Access News are running stories about a new OA mandate from the Institute of Education Sciences: Recipients of awards are expected to publish or otherwise make publicly available the results of the work supported through this program. Institute-funded investigators should submit final, peer-reviewed manuscripts resulting from research supported in whole or in part by the Institute to the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) upon acceptance for publication. An author’s final manuscript is defined as the final version accepted for journal publication, and includes all graphics and supplemental materials that are associated with the article. The Institute will make the manuscript available to the public through ERIC no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. Institutions and investigators are responsible for ensuring that any publishing or copyright agreements concerning submitted articles fully comply with this requirement. ...

I never thought I would title a post in all caps, but I can’t believe I’m reading what I’m reading. H.R. 1464, introduced by Bill Foster of Illinois, is titled: To require Federal agencies to collaborate in the development of freely-available open source educational materials in college-level physics, chemistry, and math, and for other purposes. After quoting a number of findings about how completely out of control the textbook market and textbook prices are, the bill goes on to say: ...

A good friend suggested to me yesterday that openly publishing my course materials may not be possible at BYU due to the Brigham Young University Intellectual Property Policy. Curious that such a restriction on my ability to openly share my course materials might exist, I explored the policy in more detail. Here’s what I found. 1. Course materials are Creative Works as defined by the IPP: Intellectual properties are divided into two categories: technical works and creative works. Technical works include intellectual properties that are generally of a scientific, engineering, or technical nature - such as patentable or unpatentable inventions, devices, machines, processes, methods, and compositions; computer software; and university collections. Creative works include all intellectual properties not covered in technical works that are of an artistic, scholarly, instructional, assessment, or entertainment nature. Examples of creative works might include creative productions, such as works of art or design; musical scores; books, poems, and other types of scholarly or creative writings; films; video and audio recordings; and instructional materials, such as textbooks and multimedia programs. All computer software is included in technical works except that which is clearly developed for entertainment or for instructional purposes, e.g., electronic textbooks and textbook supplements, classroom and self-study tutorials. (Section I Para 1) ...

I suppose if faculty deliberately choose to misunderstand their role and torment students, they’re free to do so. As Wired reports, another faculty member is claiming that notes students take in his class infringe his intellectual property rights. Michael Moulton, pictured right, and his publisher Faulkner Press (no link love for you!) are asserting what they suppose to be their right to control what students do with the information he teaches in his classes. While this all seems very confusing, the lawyer representing his publisher (a Mr. Sullivan) makes it quite clear: ...