The role of distance education is shifting. Traditionally distance education was limited in the number of people served because of production, reproduction, and distribution costs. Today, while it still costs the university time and money to produce a course, technology has made it such that reproduction costs are almost non-existent. This shift…

This paper addresses the difficult issues of balancing faculty and university rights and responsibilities regarding courseware and courseware modules developed as both commissioned and non-commissioned works. The ways in which this debate affects those who are engaged in building their own online courses for their universities, courseware…

The issue of who owns courseware is of great concern to faculty and universities. Until recently, when technology entered the picture, the issue was straightforward: faculty typically held copyright with everything except patents. One of the most interesting and complex issues of intellectual property in the digital environment is faculty…

This report serves as an overview of intellectual property law, policies, and practices as they relate to distance learning. It seeks to provide background information and direction for the Florida Distance Learning Network and the Postsecondary Education Planning Commission's Task Force on Telecommunications. Several of the technologies used in…

This article discusses the difficult issues of balancing faculty and university rights and responsibilities regarding courseware developed either as commissioned or non-commissioned work in higher education. The article addresses the varied concerns among university personnel and higher education institutions, reviews two major models for…