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Re: student papers query



At 01:48 PM 6/28/2001 -0700, Cindy Rosser wrote:
Do papers that student write as class assignments
become the property of the university?

I am not a lawyer, but I believe the answer to this question depends on the
policy of your university.  McMaster University, for example, has a clear
policy that student papers are the property of the University and may be
used by the University (even though the copyright resides with the student)
(see <http://www.mcmaster.ca/senate/academic/ownstwrk.htm>).  The UT system
policy is that the Regents Board "shall not assert ownership of works...
authored by students, professionals, faculty, and nonfaculty
researchers."  In some instances, universities and colleges lay claim to
all work produced by students.  I cannot find any statement in the UT
system on who owns the actual paper.

If students are considered employees, then the University would likely own
the copyright.  If they are not considered employees, then it is likely
that the students own the copyright.

FYI, two excellent resources on copyright ownership issues at the pages
from the UT General Counsel's Office (at
<http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/whowns.htm>) and the
CopyOwn site at the University of Maryland (which includes the policies
from many schools) <http://www.inform.umd.edu/CompRes/NEThics/copyown/>.

My question is how do you handle the privacy and
intellectual copyright questions such a collection
would entail?

Handling the copyright issues would be no different than with any other
collection that has copyrighted material in it (and I suspect that most of
your collections have copyrighted material).  Sorry, but I don't know
anything about student records, so I don't know if these papers would be
considered to be student records, and if any of the laws intended to
protect student records would therefore apply.



---------------------------------------------------------------
Peter B. Hirtle
Co-Director                                pbh6@cornell.edu
Cornell Institute for Digital Collections     607/255-4033 (ph)
2B Kroch Library                                   607/255-9524 (fax)
Cornell University                <http://cidc.library.cornell.edu/>
Ithaca, NY  14853
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