In a blog post about sharing taped university lectures, it outlines how students (and anyone looking for an education) could benefit greatly from access to free lectures. Obviously, universities might not appreciate giving away these lectures for free because it might cause students not to enroll. What I find interesting is whether or not a recorded lecture would be considered the property of the university because it was a work for hire or would it be copyright of the professor because it would be his/her ideas?
I think that free lectures would only benefit society and could even cause more students to want to enroll and get a more enriched educational experience once they watched a few lectures. If there would be any institution that might be more lienant with regards to copyright law I would imagine that it might be colleges and universities. Unfortunately, universities seem more and more like businesses and maybe they will try and restrict free education rather than promote it.
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I think the problem lies not within giving away free lectures. A number of leading American universities (Harvard,Yale,Stanford to just name a few) have their own podcast website or YouTube channel. It shows that there is an interest in educating people and not only running an institute of higher education (even labeled a non-profit) like a business. I would assume that recorded lectures would qualify as Intellectual Property of the particular academic institution, thereby making the professors performing work for hire.
There also is the problem that thanks to media and lack of education, giving something away for free is labeled socialism and people who never had a clue about policies scream “Communism”, because they heard of it from some right wing agitator who hosts his own TV show.
I agree with you in that free lectures will definitely stimulate more interest in the class and allow outside students to learn about the professor. It can promote more students to take that class. It reminds me of pastor sermons that one can find online, would that be the property of the church or of the speaker himself? One should not be so strict with copyright law here and instead see the benefits of free information.
I agree that the most probably outcome will be that students will become more inspired to learn and to experience a classroom environment… and I doubt that entire courses are available for free, and obviously the degree will not be free either.
This situation also reminds me of the yoga studio I practice at regularly, Yoga To The People. The owner put up some free podcasts of classes, which is great for when I’m away from the studio for a long period of time, but nothing compares to actually being in class, which I can imagine being a similar situation here.
I can’t imagine that taped lectures will negatively affect college enrollment because, at the end of the day, even if a person does listen to the lectures it won’t culminate in a degree. I agree that it will probably encourage people to pursue a college education instead.
As for copyright ownership, if the professor records a lecture presented at the university of his/her employment to a regularly scheduled class (ex. our CCC class) then the rights should go to the university. However, if it is guest lecturer (like we had in class today) or the professor records his/her talk outside of a class setting, then the copyright should belong to the speaker.
I definitely agree that it wouldn’t cause a drop in college enrollment, perhaps raise them. I think we will definitely see more free lectures on line like someone mentioned with the podcast because any sort of institution or business that wants to make a buck at the end of the day will have to explore new business models and not resist change just as the music industry is looking into giving away MP3s for free with the hopes who purchase the whole album.
This is simply virtual auditing. Auditing classes is great, but it does not cause a significant drop in enrollment. As Kristine said, auditing does not culminate in the degree. And how many of us are in it solely to learn and not also for the degree itself?
I think the copyright itself would belong to the university, but it would be in the university’s best interest to make some podcast or video lectures available to the public.
When I read this post, I thought of videotaping. In class, we went over the case of videotaping, and learned how that is possible when done in private and for the purpose of “time-shifting”. I have seen many of my friends and colleagues who bring recorders to class to record the lecture and listen to them for reviewing purposes.
I think it is very true that college are becoming more and more like businesses, lately. However, I also think that keeping a good business can benefit both the school and the students. So I think that selling recorded lectures to the public is a wise idea, while letting the enrolled students to listen them for free or to let them record themselves, in order to satisfy both students, who are enrolled to the class or not.