ABSTRACT
A tug-of-war between faculty and administration over who owns online courses has been taking place on our nation’s campuses. Pulling forcefully on one end are those institutions that declare that because they paid faculty to develop online courses and because they invested in educational technology software, supported instructional training and design, and absorbed most other costs, online courses belong to the university. Tugging at the other end are faculty who say that because they created digital courses, copyright law, and academic convention support their right to ownership, no different from on-campus courses. Virtual classes, they argue, belong entirely to the faculty.
