Enforced copyright assignment is an increasing trend. There are many reasons
why.
Copyright is becoming an increasingly hard-fought battle, both in the higher
education system, and everywhere else among the OECD countries because of
the increasing importance of the 'information economy' [
http://www.oecd.org//dsti/sti/it/ec/index.htm ]. The basic commodity form of
the information economy is well summed up by Manuel Castells (1998, End of
Millenium: Blackwell, London): "I think, therefore I produce". Thus,
ownership of each idea, by further separating the world of ideas into
proprietary fragments, becomes of proprietary interest.
Some xmca-ers may be confusing my stance on all of this. As I've said, I'm
not opposed to corporate (or any other type of ) philanthropy. What I am
entirely opposed to is the introduction of market logic (especially of the
neo-classic ideological type), "output-based" accountability, and corporate
managerialism in the education sector at any level. This especially includes
corporatised curricula.
This chap sums up a couple of my objections quite nicely. In this section he
views education thorugh a neo-classic lens, but argues much earlier that
education cannot be "productised" ... these 2 paras, then, are a negative
dialectic. The full article is worth a look for anyone interested:
Stephen Gorard (1998, "Markets in Education and the UK Experiment".
Sociological Research online. (BTW, this an excellent sociology journal).
http://www.soc.surrey.ac.uk/socresonline/2/3/annexes/markets.html
'Other suggestions are that a free market in schools is not possible because
of the likelihood of
a monopoly being established. Schools are not 'for profit'
organisations, their product is unlike
many others, and it is not the parents who are the main beneficiaries
of schools anyway
(Maynard 1975). A producers' monopoly of schools could be established
in a free market,
since the market itself is of fixed finite size, and unlike the markets
for 'genuine' consumer
goods, it cannot grow without a population increase. There are also
economies of scale in the
provision of education services, so that larger schools can provide
cheaper services per capita,
using the money saved to fund the improvements over their smaller
rivals. Thus, the early
successful schools will be able establish a 'natural' monopoly. Such an
outcome is possible,
although it is also possible that assumptions about market size and
economies of scale do not
apply here. The length of time spent in education is not necessarily a
constant, and successful
schools may persuade more pupils to stay on at 16+ for example. Economy
of scale may only
apply within the scale defined by the existing plant, and if a school
expands beyond that to
become split site, its character as well as its unit costs may change.
Above all, there is no
reason to assume that a state monopoly, as existed before 1988, is
preferable in any way to
one established in a market by popular schools with low unit costs.
A more serious objection to the marketisation of schools is that they do not
provide typical
consumer goods, since their quality is chiefly determined by the
quality of their customers
(National Commission on Education 1993). Education as a produced
commodity is not
homogeneous in the same way as many others, such as breakfast cereals
(Garner and
Hannaway 1982). There is imperfect competition between schools (e.g.
because of travel
constraints), and imperfect information on which 'consumers' may judge
them. As described
above, 'exit' is a mechanism of control in a market organisation, but
this is not an option that
consumers of education are likely to use very much. The disruption
caused by moving school
is too great for it to be very effective. Perhaps the biggest obstacle
is that schools are not run
for profit, and so if demand outstrips supply in any school, it will
lead to problems. A school is
not like a mainstream business, and cannot necessarily expand to meet
demand, nor can it
raise its prices since state education is a free service at the point
of consumption. In the UK,
85% of a school budget comes from age-weighted pupil numbers. Rather
than raising prices
or expanding its customer base, an over-subscribed school may simply
raise admission
standards. Parents can choose a school, but do not have a right to use
the school of their
choice, unless it has spare places. In this situation, the school may
become more selective in its
pupils entry requirements. Such a policy would presumably allow the
school to produce better
public examination results, by increasing the ability of its intake,
but without actually improving
teaching standards. As the relative supply of pupils dwindles, power of
selection moves to
schools, who can drive up the entry requirements, and reduce the effort
required to maintain
superiority over other schools in terms of raw indicators. Thus a
market can lead to
complacency and demotivation for successful schools, emulation of their
conservatism by
those less successful, and so to dis-improvement overall. The theory
that choice in an
imperfect market leads to selection by schools, and so to social
stratification, is an important
one, discussed more fully in the next section.'
Phil
At 09:38 AM 12/9/98 +0100, you wrote:
>At 11.42 -0500 98-11-26, Luiz Ernesto Merkle wrote:
>> Last month, David Noble gave an interesting lecture here at the
>>University of Western Ontario.
>> He criticized the practice of certain Distant Education
>>Institutions in which students have to sign contracts before attenting
>>classes in order to pass the copyrights to the university/company that
>>sells the courses.
>
>This has been nagging in the back of my mind (the SSW corner, once removed)
>since I read it. Luiz: What does this copyrighting entail? Does it go as
>far as to deny the students any rights over their own written products
>(never think the same thought twice, or you gotta pay for it)? or is it
>"just" the right of the institution to go on using student-produced
>materials (for profit?)?
>
>
>Eva
>in accordance with the local practice
>of occasionally linking way back
>(more than a week) in the conversation
>
>
>
Phil Graham
Queensland University of Technology
http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Palms/8314/