Intellectual Property Statement
Intellectual Property Statement
Central College promotes and encourages scholarly activities and creativity among its faculty, staff and students. The college supports this endeavor with released time, travel funds, and by making available its own facilities, equipment, personnel and information resources. The college also seeks specific support for creative activity from external sources, both public and private.
Long-standing academic tradition assigns ownership to the creators of academic, artistic or scholarly works or other intellectual property that results from research, teaching and writing or as part of the general activities expected of faculty and staff. Thus, the ownership of and rights to course lecture notes, syllabi, discussion and exam questions, class notes, books or articles, dissertation, thesis, software programs, works of art, musical compositions, web pages, multimedia materials, unfunded research, or like material, whether in paper, electronic or other format, belong to the creator of the material. Faculty and staff also retain control over reproduction of their works, derivative works, and dissemination, performance, or display to the profession, students or the public. Any economic benefits, real or potential, from such works belong to the creator.
Exceptions to the above include the following types of intellectual property. Ownership of these types of materials will reside with Central College.
- Works created for hire: Works created as a specific requirement of employment or as an assigned institutional duty, where the college provides specific authorization or supervision for the work. Examples include reports prepared by a dean, an administrator, or a faculty or campus committee; a history of the college commissioned to be authored by a history professor; brochures prepared by members of admissions or marketing staff; computer programs developed for the college by a member of the IT staff; any work that is outside an employee’s regular duties which is supervised or authorized by the college.
- Separately funded works: Intellectual property developed under a specifically funded research project. Ownership of and rights to separately funded works will be as specified in the grant or contract agreement.
- Works using extraordinary resources: Works using significant college resources other than those ordinarily available to most faculty and staff. Ordinarily available resources include office space; personal office equipment; office, classroom or lab computer workstations; library and other general-use information resources; network access to such resources; sabbatical leaves, internal travel and development grants.
- Development of courseware for distance learning: Courseware to be offered under the aegis of Central College or which utilizes exceptional college resources for its development. In either case the VPAA/Dean of the Facultyand the creator will together determine ownership and negotiate a written agreement concerning the courseware.
Likewise, student intellectual property produced as part of their course work belongs to the students. Intellectual property created by students as part of their employment by the college, or which uses extraordinary college resources beyond those normally provided to students, will be the property of the college. Ownership of work created by students as part of a funded research project will be as specified in the grant or contract agreement.
Faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to participate in the larger community of scholars, presenting to professional organizations and societies, and sharing results of research, creative activities or “best practices” with colleagues both within and outside of the college.
Ownership of an individual’s intellectual property does not cease upon the individual’s leaving the college’s employ. However, rights to use such intellectual property may be granted to the college at any time during or after employment.
The college requests that the creator of any intellectual property created at the college or by a college employee using college resources acknowledge the college’s contribution to the work.
Central College retains all rights to control the use of its name, logo and trademarks in association with any work, regardless of the ownership of the work.
All questions concerning this policy should be referred to the VPAA/Dean of the Faculty or Director of Central Communications.