From my experience most of the discussion about the intellectual property rights of faculty centers on market value and compensation. Many faculty are more interested in control over their intellectual property than trying to make more money from these items. The problem is that the institution can't relinquish control without potentially loosing revenue. We need to find a way to serve both faculty and institutional interests.

WHO HAS CONTROL OVER YOUR COURSE WEBSITE?

Currently many faculty are developing their courses around modules and these contain learning resources. These modules could be considered "worthless" right now, both because there is no market for these and also because faculty are not being compensated for this work. Much of the creation of extra learning resources, by tenure and tenure track faculty, is not covered by any agreement with the university. Faculty are creating web resources as part of improving their teaching. But, not everybody is required to make resources and those who are making the resources weren't specifically instructed to make them. This means that if you decide to create web resources they you should be able to decide how they are used.

It is important to point out that maintaining a website for a course is different from copying handouts. In many cases a syllabus and notes are a requirement or expected parts of preparation for a course. It has never been established that you also being paid to (i.e. required to) maintain notes that are on the internet from previous terms. Students find notes from previous terms very valuable in preparing for a course or selecting a course to take. Maintenance of your personal website is direct evidence that you are taking responsibility for your intellectual property and thus strengthens your claim for rights to it.

THE CHANGING LANDSCAPE

I think that faculty and institutional administrations better try to come to some understanding about the value of these modular learning resources quickly. Three factors are looming that will make these modules valuable for both the faculty and the institutions:

1. These resources should count for faculty productivity, promotion and tenure and scholarship of teaching. They range from glorified web-notes to reusable tutorials and graphics that serve the promotion of better teaching. This is their only current value.

2. As universities want to collaborate to "build out" their infrastructure (such as for Internet 2) they will need to provide some collaboration. These modular learning resources could be the coin of the realm for reciprocity. They are not full courses but they can be used to support both core and auxiliary courses.

3. Methods of micropayment are on the horizon that might allow faculty or institutions to directly bill for particular web pages and resources. If MP3 audio and video evolve into a micropayment for encrypted digital files, the mechanism will be available for micropayment. Importantly, many of our younger students will probably have micropayment or other web-based money to spend. Faculty could easily start selling copies of their notes to students. Universities missed out on controlling text book publication, they could miss out on this if they don't act.

ACTIONS THAT FACULTY CAN TAKE

Claim copyright and intellectual property rights to all of your notes and learning resources that you create. Make clear distinctions between what is your intellectual property (and should be under your control) and what things (digital media) were created with university support.

Don't be greedy. If a few faculty in your institution could negotiate agreements with low royalties (maybe even zero) in exchange for complete intellectual control, then it will help everybody in the future.

Unless you can get clear agreements of ownership, move all your previous notes to an off-campus, independent commercial server. Maintain these by continually linking to the resources. Collect "hit" data for your own reference.

As a demonstration project, make a set of resources available through micropayment schemes. Payment might be as simple as a agreement form that the user has to return a form.