Who owns the IP on an LMS?
Type of content |
Examples |
Rights |
Related difficulties |
Data generated in use |
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Analytics |
Logs, summary reports, visualisations of data. |
Access to analytics and log data is usually subject to the commercial contract between institution and host. State privacy law requires access to be controlled in specific ways. |
Use of data may require approval by an Ethics committee. Release of data or even publication of inferences may require the explicit prior, voluntary permission of the participants. |
Responses by learners Responses by teachers |
Assignment submissions, quiz answers, comments, ratings Marks, feedback, comments, discussions |
Title and rights relating to student work are uncertain. Some institutions require participants to assign copyright to the institution. Copyright of teachers’ work is usually vested in their employer. Learners and teachers arguably have moral rights as authors over substantial works that they create. |
Overreaching claims discourage community-building, professional development, and quality improvement. Some contributions are so fragmented that it is impracticable to get permission for reuse and repurposing, but may still be valued by the participants. |
Instructional design |
Sequence and configuration of activities and instructional material |
Copyright is usually assigned to the institution under the terms of employment of the course developer. |
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Existing objects |
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Media Course objects |
slides, notes, videos, games, simulators. SCORM packages |
Media are used under statutory permissions in the (national) Copyright Act, (institutional) collective licences, or (institutional) license agreements with copyright owners of individual objects. Copyright is held by authors, publishers or assignees. |
It is hard to track and ensure compliance with a multiplicity of rights holders, agreements, permissions and restrictions, complex jurisdictional, institutional, temporal, commercial and professional constraints in the licenses and permissions. Statutory permissions fall far short of expectations of teachers and learners. |
Platform |
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Platform configuration |
A working configuration is jointly created and maintained by LMS administrators and system adminstrators, as employees to the institution and the host. US copyright law does not protect configurations. |
The configuration is a joint responsibility of two organisations. Configuration may be protected as a Trade Secret. |
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Application Interfaces LMS application Database engine Webserver Operating system |
OAuth, LTI, TinCan Moodle MySQL Apache Debian |
Software is used under license, e.g. CC, GPL, Apache licence. Software may include components copyrighted by many authors. Patents, designs and trademarks also apply. |
License terms for software usually cannot be varied. Software must be selected with license terms that suit business requirements, including standby facilities and support processes. |
Further reading
Australia
ACC (2010). New technologies for education (December 2010). Australian Copyright Council.
Moyle, K. (2010) Building innovation: Learning with Technologies. Australian Education Review. Nr 56. Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER). online at http://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=aer
USA
CCC (2009). Using course management systems: Guidelines and best practices for copyright compliance. Copyright Clearance Centre, available online at http://www.copyright.com/media/pdfs/Using-Course-Management-Systems.pdf
John Moritz Library (2012). Copyright and Fair Use. Nebraska Methodist College, online at http://libguides.methodistcollege.edu/content.php?pid=175136&sid=1474507
Mann, B. (2008). Copyright protection and the new stakeholders in online distance education: The Play’s the Thing. First Monday, 13(7). doi:10.5210/fm.v13i7.2095 online at http://journals.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2095/1997
Sheridan libraries (2013) Copyright and Fair Use: Trends and Resources for 21st Century Scholars. Johns Hopkins, online at http://guides.library.jhu.edu/content.php?pid=276399&sid=2388897