Re: copyrighted students

Luiz Ernesto Merkle (lmerkle who-is-at julian.uwo.ca)
Wed, 09 Dec 1998 15:16:02 -0600

Eva Ekeblad wrote:

> This has been nagging in the back of my mind (the SSW corner, once remo=
ved)
> since I read it. Luiz: What does this copyrighting entail? Does it go a=
s
> 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?)?

> in accordance with the local practice of occasionally linking way=20
> back (more than a week) in the conversation
Eva, I've thought that CHAT means also *HISTORICAL* :)

Bruce, Eva, Jay, and EVERYONE,
Thank you for your comments. Sorry for not asking them individually.=20

Eva, I do not have the answer but Foucault's quote appended on some of
Jay's messages pairs quite nicely with one of David F. Noble's. Mostly
when we realize that Foucault's title "Surveiller et Punir" (To
"supervise", like in surveillance, and to punish) has bee translated
as "Discipline and Punishment". I agree and disagree with Noble in
several points, but I support the kind of activity he does. Here is
the quote:

"STUDENT =93GUINEA PIGS=94
Another key ethical issue relates to the use of student online =09
activities. Few students realize that their computer-based courses
are often thinly veiled field trials for product and market
development =97 while they are studying their courses, their courses
are studying them. In Canada, for example, universities have been
given royalty-free licenses to Virtual U software in return for
providing data on its use to vendors. Thus, all online activity,
including communications between students and professors and among
students, is moni-tored, automatically logged and archived by the
system for use by the vendor. [****]Students enrolled in courses
using Virtual U software are in fact formally designated
=93experimental subjects,=94 and must sign forms releasing ownership and
control of their online activities to the vendors.[****]

According to UCLA=92s Kobara, all of the school=92s distance-learning=20
courses are monitored and archived for use by officials of the Home=20
Education Network. On the UCLA campus, says Harlan Lebo of the =09
provost=92s office, student use of the course Web sites is routinely=20
audited and evaluated by the administration. Marvin Goldberg,
designer of the UCLA WEB-CT software, acknowl-edges that the system
allows for =93lurking=94 and automatic storage and retrieval of all
online activities.
"
in David F. Noble
"Digital diploma mills: the automation of higher education"
netWorker: The Craft of Network Computing
Vol. 2, No. 2 (April/May 1998), Pages 9-14
(For those who want, I have the pdf file (133k) of the above text,
but it is at the ACM digital library, for those who have access)
=20
Eva, It seems that that asnwer your question. :(