Ownership of Work

LegacyUser

I was wondering if some of the knowledgeable people around here could point me in the direction of any advice about ownership for work done.

I work in an academic setting. I changed jobs a couple of months ago and in the new university my boss frequently takes my work, changes his name to the top of the document and presents it as his own. He also takes ownership (on paper) of much of the work I do in coordinating and managing projects. In my last university I was always given the credit for the work I did and I'm finding it difficult to deal with the political attitude in the new jobs where he says I have not got the right status to be credited with the work, even though I'm the one doing it?

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

This is an interesting situation ... especially as I work in a university myself as a lecturer. Having said that i had no idea of the law on the matter until your post. I do know a friend who had the same situation in an academic-type setting in Ireland though and he was a bit stumped also on what to do.

The first weblink that is interesting is here. Which is unfortunately about British law, but i would guess that there is something similar in Irish law.

It says that intellectual property like you are producing belongs to the institution, but that you have certain "moral rights" over the work including being identified as the author

This second link indicates that there is something similar in Ireland and that a relevant law might be the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000.

Hope this helps and let me know if you find out anything further about the issue.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Although, on re-reading my post i think i've only partially answered (if even that!) your question, as it seems that you are given some authorship but of a demoted position relative to your input.

Is this something like writing a journal article and being given only second-authorship on the paper despite having written the bulk of it?

LegacyUser

Thanks for the replies Roundtower.

It is a number of things,
yes getting demoted down the list of authors for research I did and wrote up.

The grades are a bit strange about here but I guess I would come in as a junior lecturer (contract not permanent). My boss is an associate prof and dean.

If I do a powerpoint for a conference, he'll come in at the last minute and say he wants to give the presentation and he never makes any reference to the fact that I did the work and wrote the presentation. Similarly we are involved in several restructuring issues and I often write discussion papers which he brings to various committees, again without reference to my input. It's quite frustrating partly because I'm not getting credit for the work I do but also, I'm new at this university, and he is making it impossible for me to build a reputation here.

The Hill Billy

I may be over-simplifying this, but can you save your documents as PDF files or password protected Wod docs before giving them to the boss?

Maybe provide him with the presentations as .pps (slide show) files?

In both instances it would limit his ability to edit them to include his name as the author.

I appreciate that this doesn't stop him from being a theiving git.