As you can see on the right side panel, I had the good fortune to have five lectures I gave on "The Future of the Internet" posted on iTunes (through Stanford Continuing Studies). When I was asked if Stanford could record them, I didn't think twice about it--it seemed like a great opportunity, and since then I've received e-mails from all over globe with a variety of insights, comments, and (thankfully) praise.
Over the weekend, I had an interesting conversation with a former university legal counsel about some of the issues involved here. Not surprisingly, university agreements about posting course content online can be fraught with legal danger. In the case of iTunes, the problems begin with ownership: it is the lecturer who owns the lecture (the audio, lecture notes, etc.), and thus if the university makes agreements with third parties (such as iTunes) to distribute course content, it must also make sure that lecturers have the right to "opt-out" (although technically speaking even this is not good enough, since the university doesn't own the content in the first place...)
The issue gets thornier from there. As the lawyer I was speaking with pointed out, a university has at least three key arguments against free dissemination of recorded course material:
1) Brand dilution: This argument basically says that by posting its content online, a university is reducing the value associated with the product delivered by the institution--namely, a degree.
2) Student participation: In many cases, students are recorded on posted lectures; in some cases students may not want their questions or comments to be posted with such recordings.
3) Third-party content: This is a big one, and the administrative headache can easily become a migraine. It is in principle illegal to post any lecture that uses content where the copyright owner has not given authorization. For purposes of lectures in the classroom, e.g., where an audio recording or video is used as part of the classroom lecture, typically such issues can be avoided by appealing to "fair use." But this exit can't be used for posting of content online.
What surprised me most about this conversation was the extent to which I hadn't thought through the issues myself before agreeing to have my lectures posted on iTunes. I am generally in favor of open course content, but at the same time this conversation made me think harder about the depth of issues universities have to deal with in posting course content.
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2 comments:
It's a good question -- brings up some interesting copyright issues.
I quite agree that the issues you mention, brand dilution and student participation, are very important to consider, but, then, there are a whole host of issues emerging from the growth in on-line college courses that need concentrated attention now, not later.
Thanks!
Dapper Fellow
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