Timeline for Are there universities that consider it academic misconduct for students to publish material created by faculty?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
10 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 10, 2014 at 0:57 | comment | added | Greg | Legal or moral, whatever, point of view I find questionable practice that people try to extend control over even answers to their questions, however original it is (generally not that much). Seriously, any kind of copyright-ish approach is absolute, i.e. no one can write a story about Batman without being derivative work, even if he hasn't heard about Batman or lives in Africa. A similar approach would argue that no one can talk about 4, because it is answer to "2+2=?" and Ms. Smith has already copyrighted that one. That approach sound even more disproportional in case of essay questions. | |
| Sep 9, 2014 at 22:10 | comment | added | R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE | Part of the content of my comment was not just legal but also ethical/normative - is it right for a professor to deprive students of the right to share a significant piece of writing (not something stupid like a multiple-choice answer) because the student wrote it as a part of taking a test? | |
| Sep 9, 2014 at 21:46 | comment | added | D.W. | Greg, R, Steve Jesson -- This probably isn't the right place for discussing questions about what is/isn't legal. Among other things, copyright law is an area that requires specific domain expertise, which most people here (myself included) probably do not have. (For instance, I see multiple misconceptions about how copyright law works among this comment thread alone.) Also, the details of the law will differ from country to country. So, I strongly encourage you to focus on the ethical/normative/process issues rather than on legal/copyright issues. Let's stay on-topic. | |
| Sep 9, 2014 at 21:35 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | ... ofc this can only apply to the extent that the question is a significant creative work. One might argue that "What were the main causes of the Boer War?", while admittedly not a brilliant question, is also not copyrightable. The full exam as a compilation might be copyrightable even if the individual questions aren't. | |
| Sep 9, 2014 at 21:33 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | @R.: probably requires a lawyer to help decide whether the answer is a derivative work of the question. e.g. for a multiple choice test the correct answers are identical to a work created by the examiner, without the student ever having seen that work (and so not a derivative work in that sense), but via a predictable process of deduction from a work that they did see. My pure guess is that a M/C answer sheet is a derivative work of the question, as would be e.g. a mathematics answer that stated the question as "RTP" at the top. Other cases might be difficult to judge. | |
| Sep 9, 2014 at 20:36 | comment | added | R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE | @Greg's point about answers stands. What if I student uploads just their own answers with the questions omitted, but where it's obvious from the answers roughly what questions were being asked? | |
| Sep 9, 2014 at 13:41 | comment | added | David Mulder | @Greg: "you still should properly copyright it" ehm, no, it is already copyrighted. If you plan to file an official lawsuit for copyright infringement you will need to register it officially however, but this can be when you feel like sueing. | |
| Sep 9, 2014 at 3:02 | vote | accept | Bob Brown | ||
| Sep 9, 2014 at 0:12 | comment | added | Greg | You can call a test part of a course material. Legally, you still should properly copyright it every single time, and it will explicitly applicable only to the material. However answers to assignments are not part of the course material, neither created by the university faculty, so copyright cannot be extended to it. | |
| Sep 8, 2014 at 22:04 | history | answered | D.W. | CC BY-SA 3.0 |