Folks,
Great notes! Just a couple of corrections.
In referring to the lack of ability to transfer major related, community
college courses to the CSU system this is, in fact, a statewide problem.
Most of the CSU campuses of moved the vast majority of their major classes
to the upper division allowing only one or two community college courses to
transfer as something other than an elective.
The percentage of California Community Colleges contributing courses to the
California Virtual Campus catalog is 68%.
On the issue of intellectual property, the Internet is definitely a tangible
medium. The problem arises in that the academic exception to the work for
hire doctrine only recognizes print, not many of the new publishing media
such as the Internet or CD. Until the law changes to include media other
than print, intellectual property rights remain with the employer.
Two things I wanted to add on this topic:
The disposition of intellectual property rights may be different for adjunct
faculty. Many adjunct faculty are paid on an hourly basis. They are
generally not compensated for prep time. Subsequently, the disposition of
the intellectual property rights of material developed by an adjunct faculty
member may differ from that of a full-time faculty member. I am currently
researching this and will keep you posted. I will also be attending an
online conference on intellectual property and digital course materials
sponsored by Stephen Gilbert and the TLT Group. I highly recommend it. If
anyone is interested in participating you can register at the following
link:
http://www.tltgroup.org/forms/CourseOwnershipReg.htm
<http://www.tltgroup.org/forms/CourseOwnershipReg.htm>
Secondly, we discussed the difference between the disposition of
intellectual property rights of private sector employees and higher ed
faculty. Someone brought up the example of the scientist at Bell labs that
invented the transistor and how he did not share in the enormous profits
from that invention. Subsequently, why should faculty share in the profits
of materials they develop if those materials become commercially viable?
The key difference here is INCENTIVE. Currently, most faculty are NOT hired
specifically to develop and deliver courses via any type of technology. I
have seen several job descriptions for faculty positions that suggest they
may be assigned to teach a distance or technology mediated course. However,
few contracts require any instructor to accept a distance or technology
mediated course. Furthermore, no contract or job description that I have
seen requires a faculty member to develop a distance or technology mediated
course.
Now particularly in the community college there are generally no publishing
or research requirements to gain tenure. Often tenure is granted solely on
the basis of longevity, and it is usually granted within the first five
years of a faculty member's employment. Given these differences between
community college and university faculty it is often very difficult for an
institution to require its faculty to develop or teach distance or
technology mediated courses. There are no contractual obligations and
nothing in their job descriptions. Generally, the development of digital
course materials is considered to be outside the scope of normal work
expected of a community college faculty member (at this point in time). So
there must be some kind of incentive for them to participate.
This may mean extra pay, sharing of property rights, sharing of revenue (if
any) from the sale or license of a course, etc. For example, many senior
faculty are considering developing a repertoire of online courses prior to
retirement so that they might continue to teach these courses when they
retire from wherever they retire to. They may also want to utilize this
material with another school in another area. Other faculty envision
hitting the streets with their material to find a buyer. A situation that
is not likely, but possible.
In any case we need to begin to develop a balanced approach that respects
the law, protects the interest of the institution, and preserves the
innovative and creative spirit of our faculty.
Keep in touch,
Joe
------------------------------------------------------------------
Joseph A. Moreau
Dean of Learning Resources
West Hills College
300 Cherry Lane
Coalinga, CA 93210
559-935-0801 x3351 559-935-2633 FAX
MoreauJA@whccd.cc.ca.us
------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
From: Christopher & Raydene Wolney [SMTP:wolney@ebicom.net]
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 1999 9:26 PM
To: 'tkt8763-01@msstate.edu'
Cc: 'MoreauJA@whccd.cc.ca.us'
Subject: Class Notes: 10 November 99
Hi all,
We talked with Joseph Moreau today. He is one of the foremost
experts in
collective bargaining, issues of intellectual property, and
technology
planning for two years colleges. He is a professor at West Hills
College
http://www.westhills.cc.ca.us/ in Coalinga, CA. (Huge earthquake
there
about 8 years ago, hope all has been rebuilt well).
Additionally, he is Executive Council Member of the "Consortium for
Distance Learning" at http://www.distlearn.com/.
Sir (Dr. Moreau), I am not a clerk typist but attempt to type key
points as
I understand them. If something is in error that I typed, please
notify the
class listserv so all can be informed as to the actual instruction
you
provided.
Technology Planning: Issues of interest
A difficult issue in technology planning is the ability to document
planning and document how the institution is following the plan. How
has
the plan affected purchasing, staff development, training, etc. Look
at in
three ways:
a. Facilities: How to bring facilities up to the standards needed
for
implementing a technology plan?
b. Educational Program Master Plan: How will plan aid in the
education of
students.
c. Technology Master Plan: Planning and implementing technology
itself.
The Technology Master Plan was the hardest of the three to put
together.
There were great philosophical differences in how technology should
be
implemented. Issues included: Should students have access to the
Internet?
How should technology be implemented and planned: top-down or
bottom-up?
Should departments need to annually submit needs for technology or
should
the technology plan have built in annual requirements for each
department.
In addition, since the college is not extremely large, some did not
want to
even have a written technology plan. They felt it would be
restrictive to
creativity later on.
Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up technology Plan: Plan needs to have a vision
from
the top but seek guidance from the users at the bottom. Plan should
be have
about 30% input from the top and then the rest of the plan (70%)
should be
written from the bottom-up.
West Hills College has experienced huge growth in the student
population.
Has the infusion of technology within the college been a significant
factor
in the growth of the college? Technology infusion has had some
effect but
community involvement has played a larger role. In addition,
facility
improvement has brought a level of pride among the population.
What are the demographics of your student population?
http://www.westhills.cc.ca.us/demograph.html Student profiles at
each site
is different. Coalinga campus-traditional high school students.
http://www.westhills.cc.ca.us/map.html Students at satellite centers
are
older and less non-traditional. They range from higher middle class
individuals who want to further their education or lower class
migrant farm
workers who want to break the cycle of poverty by education.
Community colleges in California are catering more to business
education.
Laws within California have required this more vocational/technical
education vs. typical four-year college education. However, the
community
colleges also need to have more of their courses accepted four year
colleges (in CA they are the CSU-California State University
campuses).
This catering to businesses has significantly altered their
technology
planning. Since businesses have a high rate of change, the community
colleges have to change with them. It is difficult to program these
changes
into the technology plan. The obsolescence cycle is increased
greatly from
a more traditional school or university.
How has the community colleges dealt with the need to have four year
colleges accept community college credits? Students are beginning to
be
able to transfer to the CSU systems as a Junior. That have not been
able to
do this in the past but it is becoming more prevalent. West Hills
Community
College has been very active with Fresno State University in
coordinating
this transfer. General education classes have been successfully
transferred
but major specific courses have lacked the ability to transfer.
Unfortunately, this is not a statewide phenomenon.
What courses are successful through distance education? Community
colleges
account for 16% of the distance ed. CSU systems account for most of
the
rest and the UC systems do not want to participate at all. However
they (UC
systems) are participating somewhat.
A little explanation is due here. California has three levels of
state
institutions. The community college is more vocational/technical
based and
specializes in two year degrees. The CSU systems specialize in
4-year
degrees with some Master programs. The UC systems are full fledged
universities which give doctorate level degrees. Unfortunately, the
UC
systems think they are better than the CSU systems and the CSU
systems
think they are better than the Community College systems. The fact
is all
offer great classes within their areas of expertise. Unfortunately
all
don't get along with each other as well as they should.
Needless to say there is a great distance education course for
webmasters
at West Hills Community College. The person in charge can be found
at
David@cisteach.com. Good guy, email him for how his course is
executed. He
likes email (psych).
How do you evaluate technology plans?
Hardware and infrastructure inventory is important
Needs Assessment: See Ted Wesley's needs assessment at
http://www.nctp.com/articles/assess.pdf.
Use Guidebook for Planning version 2 at
http://www2.msstate.edu/~lsa1/nctp/guide.html.
About 80-90% of the higher education institutions are developing
Distance
Education courses. One of the main factors is so institutions can
grow
their student population without growing their physical facilities.
In
addition, since the influx of personal computers linked to the
Internet is
growing, many universities are establishing distance education
courses to
stay competitive with other institutions. You do not want to be the
last
one on the block without one so everybody is establishing one.
Disposition of material of an online course. If a faculty member is
lecturing in a university, there is no copyright involved. However,
once it
is taped or put on a tangible medium, it can then be copyrighted.
However,
who owns it-the professor or the institution? Typically what an
employee of
a company invents is the companies (work for higher). However, there
was an
exception for academics to protect academic freedom. However, this
has only
represented publication on a tangible medium like books and
journals. The
Internet is not as tangible. Courts have so far upheld that the
intellectual property on the Internet or on a CD becomes the
intellectual
property of the institution since it is not physically in print.
While
academic property is not usually of great economic concern, faculty
members
who have spent literally hours putting something on the web (for
example)
find themselves with no power to control the material. All of these
items
were created on the college computers, etc. What is fair?
Unfortunately
nobody has decided the issue.
League for Innovation at http://www.league.org is a good site to
view.
Chris Wolney
Shoot, Move, and Communicate
Armor, The Combat Arm of Decision!
******* TKT 8763 Seminar in Planning for Instructional Technology *******
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