As an academic community, one of our moral obligations is to openly and freely share our ideas in the hopes that they may benefit others. Given the nature of our jobs, this same principle logically applies to the sharing of teaching materials. Policy 73 describes how intellectual property rights pertain to teaching materials as well as the University’s expectations with regards to the sharing of these materials.
Your rights (section 8b, “Principles”):
The creation of materials required for course management and administration, such as course outlines, final exams and laboratory manuals, is considered an assigned task, and copyright for such material is vested in the University. This does not apply to more detailed teaching materials, such as course notes, for which the copyright belongs to the creator.
Your responsibilities (same section):
However, any of the latter material which has been printed and distributed or made publicly available should also be available for royalty-free use for teaching and research by other members of the University.
Sharing teaching materials respectfully
One of the principles on which the policy is based is that “all contributors to scholarly works should receive appropriate recognition for their contributions.” We would like to remind members of the University community who benefit from royalty-free teaching materials that it is incumbent upon you to respect your colleagues’ work by retaining the original creator’s name on the materials and/or otherwise recognizing their authorship.