Intellectual Property in Academia - A New Trend?
Over the last few years, I’ve done some teaching - both classroom and online - for some of the local universities in the Puget Sound area. It was quite fun - I got to develop and teach classes in web-programming, technical writing, and operations management. And it was also interesting (and a little bit worrying) to see how technology is changing the landscape for teaching staff - especially those at private colleges or universities.
To explain what I mean, let’s start with some definitions from a tremendous book by Poltorak and Lerner called “Essentials of Intellectual Property“.
Now, starting from the outside of this diagram and working inwards:
| Intellectual Capital | The sum total of all knowledge and information available within an organization including that which is “owned” by the organization and that which is “owned” by the people [currently] employed by the organization |
| Intellectual Assets | Intellectual capital which is “owned” by the organization i.e. that which remains when an employee leaves |
| Intellectual Property | Intellectual assets which the organization has protected under appropriate laws (copyright, patent, trademark) |
Using this terminology, we can say that universities have traditionally been focused on the accumulation of “Intellectual Capital”. Professors are paid relatively low salaries but, in return, are encouraged to carry out research and/or write lectures. The resulting knowledge is of great benefit to an institution while the professor is at the institution, but as soon as he/she leaves, the knowledge leaves as well. But both parties benefit:
- the institution benefits by keeping (salary) costs low at the expense of accumulating intellectual property
- professors benefit by increasing their personal intellectual property at the expense of salary
So what’s changing. What I’ve been seeing more and more is that universities are paying once for material to be produced (or buying it in from outside) and then hiring staff simply to teach that material - clearly (and understandably) an attempt by institutions to keep salary costs low and accumulate intellectual property at the same time.
So, unless I’m missing something, it seems that under the new model:
- the institution benefits by keeping (salary) costs low
- the institution benefits by accumulating intellectual property
If I’m a teacher, it’s not a very good deal for me!
The situation will get even worse as more and more of the course materials are delivered by the Internet (note that I’m talking here about asynchronous WBT including recorded lectures - not synchronous WBT such as GoToMeeting sessions). If this trend persists, teaching staff will be required less and less (or fewer and fewer will be employed). Or am I reading something wrong?