Memorandum of Understanding
Assuring Rights of Use of
Instructional Materials:
Summary and Overview

Prepared by the
COPYRIGHT MANAGEMENT CENTER

The Following is a Summary and Overview of the Memorandum of Understanding - "MOU". Click here to read the "MOU". Click here to read FAQs about the "MOU".

Kenneth D. Crews, Associate Dean of the Faculties for Copyright Management
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
755 West Michigan Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202-5195
Voice: 317-274-4400 Fax: 317-278-3326
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu

November 26, 2002

The “Memorandum of Understanding” is offered for adoption by the university community as a tool for addressing one of the most perplexing issues surrounding the management of our own intellectual works: How can the university community hold and manage the rights to instructional materials in a manner that best promotes quality teaching and scholarship? This instrument has the fundamental purpose of clarifying the rights of faculty, staff, and the university to use and benefit from instructional works developed in a collaborative environment. The document preserves the basic principle that faculty hold rights to their instructional works, while allowing a sharing of rights to assure the continuation of university programs. While no agreement or policy is perfect, this project takes a major step toward addressing and resolving much of the tension surrounding the unavoidable legal issues affecting scholarly work.

The law of copyright is simply inadequate to meet the wide range of interests that diverse parties have in collaborative projects, especially in the academic setting. The law also embodies tremendous risk. Recent court rulings have indicated that much faculty work product may well be “work made for hire” under copyright law, with all rights belonging to the employer university. Such a sweeping grant of all rights to any one party is an affront to the more cooperative nature of academic work. The “Memorandum of Understanding” is an attempt to establish a more mutually beneficial model for sharing rights to use instructional materials.

The agreement is the result of extensive collaboration among faculty, staff, and administrators, with guidance from the Copyright Management Center, to identify major issues and to create a framework for balancing the needs and expectations of the parties. To that end, the agreement prevents any one party from having all rights to control the finished work. The agreement also carefully assures faculty authors and the institution that they may pursue future programs of teaching and scholarship based on the instructional materials.

We are pleased to highlight the following key provisions, and we welcome your insights and comments about the agreement.

• Faculty retain rights to use their works in almost any scholarly or creative works that they later develop. From Section 2.1: “In particular, the Instructors will have the right to use their individual contributions in teaching courses on related topics and in preparing textbooks, journal articles, conference presentations, consulting projects, and other scholarly works or professional activities.”

• The university will have the authority to use the works in connection with teaching activities on campus, through distance education, and in other instructional efforts. The university will share with the developers any income from its use of the works. The university’s rights will terminate at an agreed time, and all rights will at that time revert to the faculty member or other creator of the work. While the university may place its copyright notice on the materials that it distributes, that right as well terminates on the agreed date.

• The faculty member who creates the instructional work has control of the content, and has the authority to make updates and corrections.

• The faculty member has the right to have his or her name on the finished work, or to remove the name if so desired.

• Perhaps the only significant limit on faculty member’s rights to future uses of the materials would arise if the instructor desires to pursue distance education programs sponsored by another institution that would reach the same students who might enroll in a program sponsored by IU using the same materials. Otherwise, the agreement does not prevent faculty from using their materials at another educational institution, should the opportunity arise.

Faculty members at IU are subject to this Memorandum of Understanding only voluntarily and with respect to specific course materials. Should any instructor choose not to accept these terms, other results under policy or applicable law may define the rights of the parties.

Get the Memorandum of Understanding - html version / pdf version

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