University policy on lecture slides?

VincentLeB

I just got a pretty pathetic email from an ignorant and totally stupid lecturer, who thinks she is all that.

It was basically:

"Since you didn't attend the lecture, I have not sent you on the lecture slides".

I am aware that this is not the first time that this one has been doing things like this and that it's a regular occurrence.

My tutor had told me originally that it is university policy for lecturers to post lecture slides online if they are used, and that if there was an issue like this, if the lecturer themselves refused to co-operate, then it is something that I could take up with him as he's in a different department, etc. I can't find any "policy" per se about this. Is it somewhere?

Whatever about not sending them on, but the sarcasm in the email bugged the crap out of me. PLUS, this lecture also clashes with another one of my lectures in another subject — it's once every few weeks.

I am tempted to go up and confront her about it, but I'd like to be sure of the university policy. Plus, maybe the class rep. would be a better approach. But she seems rather weak.

Anyway, options here, and thoughts?

Ravelleman

I suspect that she's perfectly within her rights to do this. If she created the slides then they belong to her.

If you have a legitimate excuse for missing class - illness, for example - then you should explain this to her and provide proof.

Confronting her about it is a risky strategy. It's unlikely that you would come out on top.

The best way to avoid this is by attending class.

Hande hoche!

Can you not just get a friend/classmate to forward copies to you?

Lawliet

I wouldn't confront them, if this lecturer is as petty as she sounds it could just cause more problems in the future. As far as I'm aware people signed up with the disability service are entitled to be given slides, I think apart from that its the lecture's discretion.

If she's given the slides to others in the class couldn't you ask them? Since this is a regular occurrence, maybe ask the class rep to set up a dropbox for the lectures that everyone in the class can access, avoid something like this happening again.

VincentLeB

Hande hoche! wrote: »

Can you not just get a friend/classmate to forward copies to you?

Lawliet wrote: »

If she's given the slides to others in the class couldn't you ask them? Since this is a regular occurrence, maybe ask the class rep to set up a dropbox for the lectures that everyone in the class can access, avoid something like this happening again.

Dropbox idea is good. Of course I can ask other people, but I was just wondering on principle.

Ravelleman wrote: »

I suspect that she's perfectly within her rights to do this. If she created the slides then they belong to her.

So, you've never heard of it being policy that lecture slides are posted online? It's definitely policy in a lot of universities — the idea is that you don't always have to be present sitting there to actually do the work. For instance, most of the world's stop universities post audio and even video of lectures along with slides. This is the way forward — not this backwards petty stuff.

Lawliet wrote: »

I wouldn't confront them, if this lecturer is as petty as she sounds it could just cause more problems in the future. As far as I'm aware people signed up with the disability service are entitled to be given slides, I think apart from that its the lecture's discretion.

Ravelleman wrote: »

Confronting her about it is a risky strategy. It's unlikely that you would come out on top.

The best way to avoid this is by attending class.

To be honest, I'm used to confronting people and coming out on top — but that's because I make sure I have grounds in the first place. If there is no policy and I have no grounds, then confronting her is not only a risky strategy but stupid, I agree.

So you've never heard of this policy? My tutor seemed fairly confident that it existed — so much so that he was the one who brought it up as an example of a dispute he could resolve. And, in fairness to my tutor, he's on the ball with every regulation and stuff, and hasn't got a thing wrong so far. Is there a university policy document, or anything like that?

Grolschevik

It's not a university policy. Specific departments may have their own policies or guidelines.

There are lecturers who do not use slides or visual aids of any kind.


PS:

VincentLeB wrote: »

I just got a pretty pathetic email from an ignorant and totally stupid lecturer, who thinks she is all that.

You never know who reads Boards. Wouldn't be hard for your lecturer to figure this one out.

Amirani

On a similar note, it there any obligation for lecturers to notify students about assignments via email or Blackboard? One of our lecturers gave us an assignment handout in class a couple of weeks back. Since then there's been no mention of the assignment either in class or via online means meaning someone who missed that 1 class could potentially have no idea that the assignment exists.

Grolschevik

NiallSparky wrote: »

On a similar note, it there any obligation for lecturers to notify students about assignments via email or Blackboard? One of our lecturers gave us an assignment handout in class a couple of weeks back. Since then there's been no mention of the assignment either in class or via online means meaning someone who missed that 1 class could potentially have no idea that the assignment exists.

No actual obligation that I'm aware of, but it would be best practice to, I'd say. The onus is usually on the student to keep themselves informed of their coursework obligations. Unless this was an ad hoc assignment?

The nature/due dates of any planned assignments should be clearly indicated in the course guide/outline, of course.

PhoenixParker

Ravelleman wrote: »

I suspect that she's perfectly within her rights to do this. If she created the slides then they belong to her.

If you have a legitimate excuse for missing class - illness, for example - then you should explain this to her and provide proof.

Confronting her about it is a risky strategy. It's unlikely that you would come out on top.

The best way to avoid this is by attending class.

Why?

OP isn't a beggar who this lecturer is granting a favour to. He's a paying customer (albeit the government has quite probably paid his fees)

The lecturer may have created the notes, but OP has paid to gain access to classes and study notes and to have their knowledge in the subject area graded.

While the lecturer shouldn't have to do any extra work as a consequence of a student's failure to attend, if the notes have been distributed to those in the class, then the students decision to attend or not attend class shouldn't have anything to do with it.

SureYWouldntYa

Its an awful pity that lecturers aren't required to put notes on blackboard, one of our lectures is supposed to have around 400 in it, but the lecturer is so slow and useless, and wastes a lot of time in class as well, so most people didn't go to the lectures, and attendance dropped to around 150. Now they're no longer being posted on blackboard, and you have to go to the lectures. The lectures are a waste of time, you can go through the slides yourself in 10 mins, and it will take the lecturer around 2 hours

Tragedy

Ravelleman wrote: »

I suspect that she's perfectly within her rights to do this. If she created the slides then they belong to her.

They belong to the University, not the Lecturer - unless specified in the Lecturer's contract of employment.

Anything created or imagined while in employment is the rights of the employer.

I think this is a major issue with Trinity. I did a post grad diploma recently, and were told at the start that notes won't be provided online. Absolutely ridiculous especially I thought that it was an evening course. I had hoped that things had changed since I finished my undergrad but nope.

The irony of having to ask someone that wasn't the lecturer for the slides from the communication module made me laugh though.

Grolschevik

Tragedy wrote: »

They belong to the University, not the Lecturer - unless specified in the Lecturer's contract of employment.

Anything created or imagined while in employment is the rights of the employer.

How come, then, that when an academic publishes a scholarly article -- which is also part of their job description -- the academic must sign over his/her own copyright in the article to the journal/publisher? The 'rights of the employer' don't come into it.

stealinhorses

Ask someone in your class to send them to you -> Profit???

my teapot is orange

Are lectures compulsory on your course OP?

Attendance isn't mandatory for many, particularly Arts/Social Science type courses.

If that were the case, deciding not to give you the slides because you didn't attend the class would seem like an inappropriate punishment.

In my opinion, you need to be having a word with whoever is the coordinating this course. Clashing lectures, forcing you to choose is unacceptable. I would also bring the fact that you had clashing lectures to yer wans attention.

234

PhoenixParker wrote: »

Why?

OP isn't a beggar who this lecturer is granting a favour to. He's a paying customer (albeit the government has quite probably paid his fees)

The lecturer may have created the notes, but OP has paid to gain access to classes and study notes and to have their knowledge in the subject area graded.

While the lecturer shouldn't have to do any extra work as a consequence of a student's failure to attend, if the notes have been distributed to those in the class, then the students decision to attend or not attend class shouldn't have anything to do with it.

It very much depends on the subject area. The OP is paying for an education, but not to have one spoon-fed to him

If you are doing a social-sciences or humanities course then you have a reading list. If you miss a lecture then you just go and read all of the material. A lecture would condense it for you but if you can't make the lecture then you have to make it up somehow.

This may be applicable to the sciences to an extent, I don't know. But I imagine that at university level you can still go and figure something out from a book or primary sources without having it explained to you.

Lawliet

VincentLeB wrote: »

To be honest, I'm used to confronting people and coming out on top — but that's because I make sure I have grounds in the first place. If there is no policy and I have no grounds, then confronting her is not only a risky strategy but stupid, I agree.

Even if you had grounds I'd still advise you to leave it. I had a lecturer take a dislike to me after I confronted them on something when college policy was 100% behind me. I might be a bit paranoid but I swear they seemed to mark my assignments extra hard after that.

You have to pick your battles sometimes, lecture notes you can get off a classmate isn't worth it.

Ravelleman

Tragedy wrote: »

They belong to the University, not the Lecturer - unless specified in the Lecturer's contract of employment.

Anything created or imagined while in employment is the rights of the employer.

Do you have a source for this? What if, like many lecturers, she made the slides outside her working hours? Do they then belong to the university too?

To me that sounds quite dubious.

Edit: This also isn't the case in the humanities, full stop - no academic would ever write a book or article if copyright always remained in the hands of the university.

blucey

ERR
It's not college policy to drop ideas into your brain.some may give slides.some. .. May not.
Take notes. End of.
You are responsible for your learning. Not us. We are here to aid
Aid
Not be

my teapot is orange

blucey wrote: »

ERR
It's not college policy to drop ideas into your brain.some may give slides.some. .. May not.
Take notes. End of.
You are responsible for your learning. Not us. We are here to aid
Aid
Not be

But I would expect them to apply the exact same policy to all their students either way. If the OP couldn't go to the lecture because of a timetable clash (fault of college, not the OP) then to deprive the OP of a resource that every other student gets seems very unreasonable. It's not necessarily about that lecturer giving slides/not giving slides. It's about not being at a disadvantage relative to other students.

kc90

VincentLeB wrote: »

I just got a pretty pathetic email from an ignorant and totally stupid lecturer, who thinks she is all that.

It was basically:

"Since you didn't attend the lecture, I have not sent you on the lecture slides".

I am aware that this is not the first time that this one has been doing things like this and that it's a regular occurrence.

My tutor had told me originally that it is university policy for lecturers to post lecture slides online if they are used, and that if there was an issue like this, if the lecturer themselves refused to co-operate, then it is something that I could take up with him as he's in a different department, etc. I can't find any "policy" per se about this. Is it somewhere?

Whatever about not sending them on, but the sarcasm in the email bugged the crap out of me. PLUS, this lecture also clashes with another one of my lectures in another subject — it's once every few weeks.

I am tempted to go up and confront her about it, but I'd like to be sure of the university policy. Plus, maybe the class rep. would be a better approach. But she seems rather weak.

Anyway, options here, and thoughts?

There is a policy whereby any material made available must be in PDF format. PPT can be uploaded but there should also be PDF version. This may be departmental though.
I'm not convinced lecturers have to provide material to you. From 3rd year, the vast majority of my lecturers used either handouts, an attendance based mailing list or relied on handwritten notes. Although, if I missed handouts/notes, I was always able to get them directly from the lecturer at a later stage.
I don't think confronting her will accomplish anything. It's not your place to educate a lecturer. If you have an issue, get in contact with your tutor.

Tragedy

Ravelleman wrote: »

Do you have a source for this? What if, like many lecturers, she made the slides outside her working hours? Do they then belong to the university too?

Anything created while in employment (as opposed to employed) is the property of your employer. This includes both physical and intellectual media, including ideas (e.g. working on a research project, come up with great idea, abandon company and start up your own using the idea you worked on on previous company's time). It's pretty basic, and you're free to prove differently.

Edit: This also isn't the case in the humanities, full stop - no academic would ever write a book or article if copyright always remained in the hands of the university.

You are misunderstanding. By default, any material created in employment is the ownership of your employer. Whether this is a toy in a production line, a mathematical formula, a new drug, an encryption algorithm, an economic theory - it matters not.

However, many contracts will assign copyright of certain aspects to the employer, while assigning others to the employee. Universities in America for example, own copyright to any/all patentable material developed but generally don't enforce copyright on course material.

If you're genuinely interested, do a bit of research on the Ivy League Universities enforcing Open Access on research journals developed by their staff.

Grolschevik

Tragedy wrote: »

You are misunderstanding. By default, any material created in employment is the ownership of your employer. Whether this is a toy in a production line, a mathematical formula, a new drug, an encryption algorithm, an economic theory - it matters not.

You may be unaware of the teaching exception in copyright. There’s a very useful summary of it here, in an explanation of a policy change whereby an American university is changing from its previous default “employer owns everything” position to what the norm is in universities that it considers to be peer institutions.

http://www.academic.umn.edu/provost/reports/copyright.html

Key parts:

“A central—and explicit—principle of the new policy (III 2) is that "The University shall maintain the strong academic tradition that vests copyright ownership in works of scholarship in the faculty." [meaning the faculty member, or individual academic – it’s an American usage].

“After a comprehensive survey of 20 peer institutions (download PDF), the Copyright Advisory Committee proposed several key changes to the current university intellectual property policy. The new copyright policy is consistent with the policies of our peers.”

“Under the new policy faculty own the copyright in their ‘academic work’ as defined in Section II (1) of this policy. Academic work includes scholarly, pedagogical and creative work. Faculty own copyright to their academic work regardless of the form in which such work is “fixed.” For example, copyright in a set of PowerPoint slides created by a faculty member to accompany a lecture would be owned by the faculty member".


And here’s something Trinity specific, about who owns copyright in scholarly articles etc

https://www.tcd.ie/Library/riss/tara/tara-copyright.php

“When you deposit an item in TARA, the system will present you with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-alike licence which has been adapted for TCD purposes, and you will be prompted to agree to it. In doing so you retain all of your rights associated with authorship of the item. Agreeing to the licence simply means that you give your permission to Trinity College Dublin to distribute your work electronically.”


More directly:
https://www.tcd.ie/research_innovation/assets/TCD%20Open%20Access%20Policy.pdf

“TCD is licensed to distribute the paper, but author retains copyright”


You'll be pleased to know that, as a student, you retain copyright in any essays or assignments submitted as part of your course.

However, recording a lecture without the lecturer's permission is prohibited, as is unauthorised sharing of copyrighted material via email or the web.

Tragedy

Grolschevik wrote: »

You may be unaware of the teaching exception in copyright. There’s a very useful summary of it here, in an explanation of a policy change whereby an American university is changing from its previous default “employer owns everything” position to what the norm is in universities that it considers to be peer institutions.

http://www.academic.umn.edu/provost/reports/copyright.html

Key parts:

“A central—and explicit—principle of the new policy (III 2) is that "The University shall maintain the strong academic tradition that vests copyright ownership in works of scholarship in the faculty." [meaning the faculty member, or individual academic – it’s an American usage].

“After a comprehensive survey of 20 peer institutions (download PDF), the Copyright Advisory Committee proposed several key changes to the current university intellectual property policy. The new copyright policy is consistent with the policies of our peers.”

“Under the new policy faculty own the copyright in their ‘academic work’ as defined in Section II (1) of this policy. Academic work includes scholarly, pedagogical and creative work. Faculty own copyright to their academic work regardless of the form in which such work is “fixed.” For example, copyright in a set of PowerPoint slides created by a faculty member to accompany a lecture would be owned by the faculty member".


And here’s something Trinity specific, about who owns copyright in scholarly articles etc

https://www.tcd.ie/Library/riss/tara/tara-copyright.php

“When you deposit an item in TARA, the system will present you with a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-alike licence which has been adapted for TCD purposes, and you will be prompted to agree to it. In doing so you retain all of your rights associated with authorship of the item. Agreeing to the licence simply means that you give your permission to Trinity College Dublin to distribute your work electronically.”


More directly:
https://www.tcd.ie/research_innovation/assets/TCD%20Open%20Access%20Policy.pdf

“TCD is licensed to distribute the paper, but author retains copyright”


You'll be pleased to know that, as a student, you retain copyright in any essays or assignments submitted as part of your course.

However, recording a lecture without the lecturer's permission is prohibited, as is unauthorised sharing of copyrighted material via email or the web.

You are misunderstanding the teaching exception to copyright. That allows the fair use of copyrighted works for teaching purposes as outlined in the Berne Convention, which is nothing like what you described it as.

If you're instead referring to the 'Teaching exemption' that is only relevant to the USA, that hasn't been in common use since the 1978 Copyright Act.

Regardless of which you are referring to, you're wrong about their relevance and implications and I'm not sure how a University of Minnesota school policy is somehow evidence as to prevailing copyright law.

You also make an extremely elemental mistake re: copyright vs authorship.

Enough off topic I guess!

Grolschevik

Tragedy wrote: »

You are misunderstanding the teaching exception to copyright. That allows the fair use of copyrighted works for teaching purposes as outlined in the Berne Convention, which is nothing like what you described it as.

If you're instead referring to the 'Teaching exemption' that is only relevant to the USA, that hasn't been in common use since the 1978 Copyright Act.

Regardless of which you are referring to, you're wrong about their relevance and implications and I'm not sure how a University of Minnesota school policy is somehow evidence as to prevailing copyright law.

You also make an extremely elemental mistake re: copyright vs authorship.

Enough off topic I guess!

The teacher exemption to the default position of employer ownership is relevant because you stated that in all cases, except where specifically spelt out in the contract of employment, universities own the intellectual and creative works of academic staff. The link shows that you are wrong.

Fair use of materials for teaching purposes is indeed an entirely separate issue.

The TCD links clearly show that authorship of and copyright in scholarly works resides with the individual academic, not with the university. As I pointed out in post 13, academics must sign over copyright to the publisher before an article is published. They of course retain authorship, but the point is that the individual academic signs it over.

Tragedy

Grolschevik wrote: »

The teacher exemption to the default position of employer ownership is relevant because you stated that in all cases, except where specifically spelt out in the contract of employment, universities own the intellectual and creative works of academic staff. The link shows that you are wrong.

The link shows the University of Minnesota's own 'policy', it does not show a 'teaching exemption of copyright'. Indeed, if there was a broad 'teaching exemption of copyright' UofM wouldn't need to have a school policy as it would be completely redundant. There is no teacher exemption, there used to be one in the USA but it ceased to be relevant after 1978, and certainly isn't applicable to Ireland or the EU.

I suggest you stop digging.

The TCD links clearly show that authorship of and copyright in scholarly works resides with the individual academic, not with the university. As I pointed out in post 13, academics must sign over copyright to the publisher before an article is published. They of course retain authorship, but the point is that the individual academic signs it over.

That's nice but again, the fact that TCD explicitly gives copyright of scholarly articles to the author rather indicates that there isn't a 'teaching exemption'.

Nothing you have posted has contradicted anything I have stated in this thread, and you still seem rather confused about the information you're posting. I suspect you had no idea about the 1978 copyright act in the USA, or the Berne Convention on fair use, and your repeated attempts to portray a single US Universities policy as some kind of overarching worldwide "teaching exemption" is laughable at best. To the best of my knowledge, there is also nothing in the Irish 2000 Act on some kind of 'teaching exception' other than the fair use exception from the Berne Convention (and originally enumerated in the 1963 copyright act). Again, you seem to be confused the teaching exception wrt fair use.

Grolschevik

Tragedy wrote: »

The link shows the University of Minnesota's own 'policy', it does not show a 'teaching exemption of copyright'. Indeed, if there was a broad 'teaching exemption of copyright' UofM wouldn't need to have a school policy as it would be completely redundant. There is no teacher exemption, there used to be one in the USA but it ceased to be relevant after 1978, and certainly isn't applicable to Ireland or the EU.

I suggest you stop digging.



That's nice but again, the fact that TCD explicitly gives copyright of scholarly articles to the author rather indicates that there isn't a 'teaching exemption'.

Nothing you have posted has contradicted anything I have stated in this thread, and you still seem rather confused about the information you're posting. I suspect you had no idea about the 1978 copyright act in the USA, or the Berne Convention on fair use, and your repeated attempts to portray a single US Universities policy as some kind of overarching worldwide "teaching exemption" is laughable at best.

I think you're misunderstanding me.

I'm not claiming that as evidence of a global exemption. I mention it to rebut your contention that in all instances, except for those specifically laid out in an individual's contract of employment, the institution automatically owns scholarship or lecture notes produced by academic employees.

That it is in fact more nuanced than you claim, and depends on the particular IP policies of each institution.

Tragedy

Grolschevik wrote: »

I think you're misunderstanding me.

I'm not claiming that as evidence of a global exemption. I mention it to rebut your contention that in all instances, except for those specifically laid out in an individual's contract of employment, the institution automatically owns scholarship or lecture notes produced by academic employees.

That it is in fact more nuanced than you claim, and depends on the particular IP policies of each institution.

I'm not misunderstanding you, you've been posting terrible information all thread.

Where is this mythical overarching "teaching exception in copyright" that you repeatedly reference, with only one single link?

I stated the default position as regards to copyright, and that this can be modified by individual contracts of employment. A University choosing to hand over copyright to the authors does not in any way rebut or alter that or create a 'teaching exception in copyright'.

Again, I sincerely suggest you stop digging. You've posted a ton of bad information so far, all based on the premise that I didn't explicitly state that copyright holders can institute a different copyright policy? Get real, and stop posting ****e please.

Grolschevik

Tragedy wrote: »

I'm not misunderstanding you, you've been posting terrible information all thread.

Where is this mythical overarching "teaching exception in copyright" that you repeatedly reference, with only one single link?

Istated the default position as regards to copyright, and that this can be modified by individual contracts of employment. A University choosing to hand over copyright to the authors does not in any way rebut or alter that or create a 'teaching exception in copyright'.

Again, I sincerely suggest you stop digging. You've posted a ton of bad information so far, all based on the premise that I didn't explicitly state that copyright holders can institute a different copyright policy? Get real, and stop posting ****e please.

I have never claimed that there is an overarching worldwide teacher exemption.

I only say that your assertion that a university automatically owns the academic output of lecturers is wrong, that it depends on the policies of the institution.

So when you said that Trinity owned the lecture notes mentioned in the OP, you would have needed to support that with reference to TCD's IP policy, not a generalised assertion that employers always own such things.

Your repeated bringing up of fair use just serves to obfuscate. Stop trying to put words in my mouth and take the time to read what I have actually written.

blubloblu

I've found most of the lecturers who act this way are those who add nothing to the slides. The ones who sit there for an hour reading off the projector as if we were all illiterate.
A college-wide policy forcing them to distribute notes might encourage them to actually engage in their lecturing and disseminate their interest in the topic.

languagenerd

Sorry, OP, but I'm fairly sure that there is no college-wide policy on lecture slides. Maybe individual departments or schools have their own regulations, but I highly doubt that there is a college rule about it.

Throughout my four years in TCD, only one of my lecturers ever put their lecture slides online. Some of the others would occasionally email us a certain set or give us a photocopy of the slides in the class, but for the most part, we just borrowed a friend's notes if we missed a class.

As regards confronting the lecturer: does she know that your absence is due to a timetable clash? If she doesn't, you should first of all make her aware of that and ask if she could make an exception in that case. If she thinks you simply chose not to attend, there's no reason why she should give you the notes. But most lecturers show themselves to be reasonable if your absence is due to circumstances beyond your control (clashes, illnesses, family emergencies, etc.).

If she knows about the timetable issue and is still refusing, you could ask your class rep, your tutor or the SU Education Officer to intervene on your behalf. It's never a good idea to go in heavy-handed, claiming a lecturer is breaking college rules and demanding they change their mind... Don't forget that ( A) they've been/will be here longer than you and that ( they grade your assignments.