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Professors Say Massive Open Online Courses Threaten Academic Freedom
McGruber writes "The Chronicle of Higher Education has the news that American Association of University Professors (AAUP) believes that faculty members' copyrights and academic freedom are being threatened by colleges claiming ownership of the massive open online courses their instructors have developed. The AAUP plans this year to undertake a campaign to urge professors to get protections of their intellectual-property rights included in their contracts and faculty handbooks. According to former AAUP President Cory Nelson, 'If we lose the battle over intellectual property, it's over. Being a professor will no longer be a professional career or a professional identity,' and faculty members will instead essentially find themselves working in 'a service industry.' [Just like their graduate students?]"
They'll get over it when enough people ignore them :)
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Where I went to school the students always owned their own research. That's not always the case. Go to a University known for good research.
Claim freedom is lack of. Claim right is wrong, claim truth is lies. Not news.
Maybe with a little academic freedom we can find higher education that isn't a left wing indoctrination institute.
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I love how professors can claim copyrights on research done with my tax dollars.
They're not claiming the existence of MOOCs threatens academic freedom, but that the universities' IP grab, claiming ownership of course materials in order to license them to for-profit firms like Coursera, does so. The traditional IP agreement is that universities own a share of patentable inventions developed using university facilities, but do not own copyrights on materials, such as books, articles, course slides, tutorials, presentations, etc. produced by professors, which are supposed to be free of any university legal interference.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I've participated in a few 'MOOC's in the past, and have thought about a few more. The ones up until now all seem to be adaptations of courses offered by universities, and using the university's name recognition and NOT the professor's to attract students. It would be interesting to see how many people would be attracted to a class by "Dr. Joe Schmoe" and not "XXX 200 from Harvard University as taught by Dr. Joe Schmoe".
Will schools allow instructors to advertize their affiliation in the descriptions of their courses? Will sites like Coursera be allowed to group by university courses which aren't actually taught at those institutions, just taught by people who work there?
Also, this really seems more about the schools threatening academic freedom, not the 'MOOCs'.
we are looking at a couple things
1 a School claiming copyrights on a teachers work (possibly preventing said teacher from posting the course on a free site)
2 folks wanting to get courses for free (maybe so that they know the material before doing the course for credit/paid??)
what i would do as a teacher is make sure that the vids/materials have several logos through out the course.
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Professors Say Massive Open Online Courses Threaten Academic Freedom
threaten their monopoly on information... it's RIAA and MPAA whining of a different flavor.
[Just like their graduate students?]
In the U.S., graduate/research assistants generally aren't even considered employees under the law. Universities use the "they're students, not employees" thing to skirt even the most basic worker protections for grad assistants (similar to the way interns are exploited). They're so low that they can't even file for unemployment or count their work towards their Social Security (since they were never even "employed" in the first place, according to the law).
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/zunguzungu/the-mooc-moment-and-the-end-of-reform/ - discusses that MOOCs haven't really been tested in terms of how good they are at educating people. The article also suggests that the push for MOOCs is coming because governments can no longer afford to provide college education, so by pushing to an online model, they can shrink the college sector. They still fulfill their responsibility of "educating people" - but they don't have to pay for all those expensive bits like college buildings and academics. The article suggests that a small number of people will get a "traditional premium education" which costs an arm and a leg and where they get to interact with an academic directly. The majority of people though will get their education in a way similar to how IT vendors do certification today. Students self study from MOOCs and then book themselves in for exams taken at authorized testing centers. Anyway the article is a lot more detailed - but the push for this stuff is coming because it's a quick way for governments to cut a lot of spending whilst claiming to be embracing "the revolution in education".
Academic freedom is something most professors are hardly in a position to speak of. In my own college courses, students were afforded very little opportunity to think freely if they wished to get grades that would sustain their scholarships and academics-based assistance. And this was at a right-wing private university, where I caused endless arguments in one of the few "academically free" courses I took for having libertarian views (much to the amusement of the professor, who successfully masked his own politics to encourage discussion, but in private, I found him to be a likely independent or (L|l)ibertarian rather than a Republican or Democrat). I've heard it gets even worse in such ways at the more common liberal-dominated universities, where one of my friends reported a class began with the professor announcing on the first day that if anyone was a Republican, they may as well leave right now and drop the class because they would be given a failing grade if they were discovered.
Contrast this with my online courses that I took, where I found that instead of sitting through a lecture where a professor stood on his soapbox for an hour, I could actually craft proper responses to queries and interact much more openly in ways that fostered an environment where people could learn from each other as well as just whatever the instructors' opinions expressed happened to be.
Most professors, when referring to "Academic Freedom", usually mean "freedom for professional academics". I'm not sure the ivory tower deserves the protection it has enjoyed for so long at the expense of students' ability to actually use their minds.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Guy's right. We're all basically being reduced to cogs in a machine. There's a really tiny group of super geniuses that will do the basic research. Maybe a few hundred thousand out of 6 billion. The rest of us will be replaced by robots and software. The fun part is sitting back watching all the rubes convince themselves their part of that tiny fraction of geniuses and that this doesn't apply to them.
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What it really is affecting their freedom through tenure to do whatever they please rather then trying to serve the public as they should be by teaching. I hope this kills the concept of tenure, having absolute job security is analogous to having absolute power, IMHO.
I go out of my way to complicate the simple things, so that I can simplify the complicated things.
How many university professors will now change their mind about imaginary property and how many will still claim, "but if only we can tweak it thusly, for my benefit, it'll be all better?"
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
A number of years ago I worked with a professor who was writing a textbook. I wrote a quiz engine and a question bank to use with it. The professor owned the copyright to the textbook. The university owned the electronic stuff I developed, both text and code, even though it was an adjunct to the text.
"Seven Deadly Sins? I thought it was a to-do list!"
and the for-profit college model in general. schools need to stop hiring MBA flunkies as their deans, and start focusing on academics again
Welcome to the 1980s. The world no longer needs people to stand in front of a group of 20 year olds and read a book to them.
That said, plenty of classes do benefit greatly from a live instructor. But virtually any "core curriculum" class really only requires a professor as the equivalent of a janitor - Count the filled chairs, sweep in the homework every week, polish the doorknobs and desktops, refill the quiz dispenser, and do a quarterly inspection of the knowledge sieves.
So the real question here needs rephrasing - Instead of figuring out how to pay professors for "producing" the same course material year after year when we have the ability to completely automate that, how about:
1) Find the "best" professor for each class in the world, buy the rights to his materials and make that "The" foo-101 course,
2) Refocus the in-person college experience around classes that actually involve thought rather than rote, and
3) Use the savings to cut tuitions back to a level that doesn't leave people in debt for the first 40 years of their professional careers.
I know, I know... Crazy talk.
/ Player Piano.
What a load of crock. Under Cory Nelson's definition the only 'professionals' are professors. Most of these guys are paid by the state, which means US. It has always irked me that they took their salary and then patented and copyrighted the work they were paid to do by the public. Now they are whining that their institutions are treating them like the rest of us professionals are treated. I still think it is wrong that the institution can claim ownership of the fruits of public money, but the way Texas is treating it's universities funding-wise (and I imagine other states as well), the universities have to seek other sources of revenue, in this case it is coming from perks long held by professors and so is a net zero impact on the rest of us.
It IS a service industry. Get over it and start competing.
And some things they do are.
a overload of required classes (some even still have swim tests and PE classes that you have to pay universities prices for)
makeing interns pay full price for credits for there work.
ripping pages of out books in classes to stop people from buy a old copy of book for class. Have the page ripped out before hand you get a lower grade.
upping the number credits to get a degree.
Forcing people to live in dorm with room mates and even shared bathroom for a full floor at a price that costs more then renting on your own (year round).
makeing transfer students retake OUR math and other gen eds. Some states had to pass laws saying that they must take (community college credits)
required classes that fall in the way that you end taking 5 years for a 4 year degree.
Some schools force you to buy there laptop (that is not that much of a good deal or does not have the power for all kinds of classes)
High priced and or low priced low max mini-med insurance that if you get really sick does not help you at all.
some fully majors that should not be at an university and or should be 4 years.
Soon professors will need talent agents....
The very earliest beginnings of what is now ( still ) known as "universities" lay in Athens, in the Stoa where Aristotle taught. I can not remember having heard or read any of the "teachers" emitting whatsoever claim to the "rights" or "ownership" of the materials they taught. Another forefather of the universities is the model that Greek physicians had for teaching: the student would pay for the education, and be able to earn a living from his trade by letting those patients pay who could afford it. His craft, however, was to be put without discussion, without payment, to the disposal of the poor. Moreover, the future doctor would oblige himself, under oath, to accept any pupil wishing to learn the same trade, as long as the pupil was apt.
The first time we had, within universities, claims to truth and property was in the first "real" universities - "real" because they were the first ones to sport the name "Universitas" - of the high Middle Ages, in Europe. These claims came not from the educating personnel, they originated within the then and there omnipotent Roman Catholic church. It took us 600 years to get rid of that domination. Do we want to go back to the dark dungeons we came from ? I suppose not. Therefore, the AAUP's stance is not only ridiculous. It is condemned to die where it belongs: forgotten by all, in the last ditch.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
I will give Professors some slack as soon as they stop being assholes and publishing their own textbooks every semester and sell them for $250 with a requirement that you must have it for their class.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Yes, but speaking as a professor, this is not a case of academic freedom and I get _really_ fed up with academic unions claiming "academic freedom" for everything regardless of whether or not it is. Violation of academic freedom would the a university telling me that I had to use material X for teaching or that I could not do research on Y.
This is a simple question about owning the intellectual property rights on material produced. Frankly the way I think this should be is that I own the copyright but the university has a permanent license to use any material I generate for education of its own students. Since academic careers are built on reputation it's my moral rights - to be associated as the author of the material - that I care more about. I put all my material under a CC NC-BY-SA license. If 100k people found it useful enough to study from it and learn some particle physics I'd consider myself to be doing really well at the education part of my job!
The only people who think professors are some entitled class are ... professors. You provide a service, for pay, just like a doctor, or lawyer or barista.
You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake just because you have a PhD. I know that's what all the other PhDs told you when you joined the club, but reality is knocking on your door.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I'd say I feel sorry for professors who feel threatened by the online education courses, but only because I feel sorry for anyone who refuses to find a better solution that to file for IP rights for their teaching material and processes. That's just going to create yet another money-making outlet for patent trolls and their lawyers. Everyone loses that game except the lawyers.
Build a better business model and get with the program, sirs and ma'ams.
"Courage is being afraid to do the Right Thing, and doing it anyway."
Yes, to keep that serf alive so you can work him to death.
Why did this get modded down from at least a +1 to a -1? It's a joke. Do the mods now lack a sense of humor in addition to being intolerant of different views?
I don't own the code I create for my employer. I am not free to post it on the internet, publish it, give it away or sell it.
Is really the best union.
I wish them luck with this. Maybe it will lead to more reasonable employment contracts for the rest of us.
When a group of people say, "massively open X will threaten Y freedom!" ... what they are really saying is, "massively open X will actually increase Y freedom, but it will also threaten our pleasantly feathered nests!"
Freedom used provide Americans with best CHEAPEST health care in the world
Cite?
Freedom used to provide Americans arguably with best and cheapest education in the world
Cite?
Medical care would be falling in price
Evidence?
If a school is offering online classes as part of their "normal" curriculum, and if you use the university's resources to produce something while being paid by the university - does this become a work for hire situation?
in the economics of running a college (in the United States at least) "academics" isn't at the top of the "income generating list" - my "traditional big college university" income list = 1. housing, 2. alumni donations, and sometimes 3. athletics/research. Which means actually "educating" students isn't the primary mission for a lot of schools - so it follows that the professors/instructors become a necessary evil - i.e. a "cost" to be constrained or a "resource" to be utilized.
(of course at smaller schools student tuition - and government grants/loans - are the main source of income but that is a different subject)
online classes are great for actually educating people, and can enhance a school's "brand" (which is the approach I'm seeing with a lot of coursera classes) - so I don't see free mooc's as a huge threat to the acdemic status quo - but "ownership" probably leans towards the university.
of course nothing is stopping an enterprising instructor from creating mooc's on their time, with their resources, and with their name attached...
in the "I don't work at the MIT admissions office" category - I don't think 12 years of OpenCourseware has had a negative impact on M.I.T.'s admissions numbers ...
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
The academics true fear: Online courses = less jobs in academia.
So obvious it shouldn't have to be said, but it does.
Maybe this will bring down the over priced textbooks.
If they made it on school time, using school facilities I think it's fair to say the school should be the owner.
(If at first you don't succeed, do it different next time!)
Just because worker rights are dead and continue to die as the corporate dominance grows doesn't mean we should blindly accept today's situation in the majority of professions.
The few holdouts, unsurprisingly, are professions with functioning UNIONS. Despised and resented by those who lack union backing and even some who do; corporate propaganda is unmatched and it wouldn't surprise me if professors are the last demographic to be enslaved.
Everything is NOT business. These are SCHOOLS. When are people going to realize this. MBAs are not high priests! Stop having your world view dictated by these false prophets! The history of economic success is not a result of modern MBA thinking being applied to all aspects of life.
So called "I.P." should only ever belong to employees and be non-transferable. Save your boss billions with your brainchild and you deserve have a job for life (if not the bonuses the bosses receive.) Come 50-60 years old, they'll fire you saying "What have you done for us lately?" Americans especially need to go to these 3rd world nations and see the walled communities next to slums where there is no upward mobility - it is their future...
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The $300K a year full professor at a top college . Of course that takes 12 years of elementary schooling 10+ years of college and grad school, and another 7 years of stressful tenure work to reach that plateau. Universities have used this exclusivity to charge costs that rise much faster than general inflation. And this is being threatened now by new educational technology.
Also the online courses will attract the best students. Leaving them with the room temp IQs wanting to be spoon fed.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I'm pro both types. Yes, I have a Christian background, but my belief in a higher is a little more generic than it used to be. I believe social Darwinism is a part of Darwinism period. If a part of a species wont work for it's own survival it's little different than losing out in the kill or be killed game. Those that chose not to thrive should not be propped up by those that do. Greed has it's own trappings just like the opposite end of the spectrum. Let it happen.
I'm not saying don't take care of those that need some help, far from it. I've helped people who need it and after a couple of things that stand out I've been helped. We should be free to chose to help those that need help, we should not be required to prop up a part of the species that won't look after its own survival.
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It might sound ridiculous, but it's the truth. It's a side effect of the right being so anti-science that there is no level of evidence sufficient to overcome the delusion. And the left generally being willing to at least consider it.
The result is that things will be biased in favor of the left.
So, it might sound ridiculous, but only to people that are lacking in intelligence.
which was my experience of at least one chemistry prof at the end of the 70s. But yes, the first two years of most STEM courses need the core curriculum delivered by high quality 'lectures' - being full scale TV documentary productions, not just a talking head; otherwise what's wrong with a book? Obviously there needs to be someone available to dig you out of holes if you get stuck, but ideally the course will prevent most of that.
The world is a complex place. We've had several things that held back are standard of living from going to heck in the first world. Two world wars that wiped out large portions of the populace and wrecked civilization helped. Moving our slave labor to China/India/Mexico etc also helped. But there are very real events going on right now that are going to crash the quality of life for those of us who've managed to obtain little things like shelter and a steady food supply. China/India/Mexico are industrializing and competing with you for food and fuel now. And Just because it took a little longer for the software to catch up than the doomsayers in the 80s doesn't mean we haven't lost millions of jobs to software. How many accounting clerks do you know? How many were there before Lotus 1-2-3? Better questions: how many employees does it take to run a sleeping bag factory that churns out 1 million bags/yr? 1000? 500? Try 100 (google it). Heck, just look at how much better Windows XP is than NT. How many IT jobs were lost when Microsoft software halved (or better) the rate at which it crashed.
Just because something bad took longer to happen than expected, doesn't mean it's not going to happen. Nice try though.
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Why should academics get any kind of 'special' professional treatment on this issue? Just because the university didn't enforce this rule before doesn't mean you get to whine over it now. I work for a national manufacturing corporation, as a designer, but I know that everything I create 'on the job' belongs to the company. That's why they pay you, to provide the talent, to be a resource they can draw from. If you want to develop online courses and keep the rights, do it outside of your day job as an independent contractor. Please come to grips with the fact that you are not a 'special' individual just because you teach kids all day. I think my work is pretty awesome, but I have no illusions that down the road the company may decide to change it to suit a new need or political strategy. That's why I have a separate, personal business, so that I can develop my own work without fear of copyright issues. Take what you've learned and move on.
When was being a professor not a service industry job?