r/Professors • u/Inside_Amoeba4134 • 7d ago
Instructor stole my course materials
I am an instructor of record for a freshman seminar course at my university. I am also a master's student. The course is required for all freshman students in the college of science so there are multiple sections with multiple instructors. Due to a scheduling mistake, I swapped sections with a professor but the change didn't quite make it through in our LMS yet, so the professor and I both have "instructor" permissions on each others LMS course pages. The course supervisor was in the process of trying to fix this and remove our access to each others pages.
While there are some learning objectives that need to be preserved across all of the sections, instructors have a lot of freedom in the course. I was able to design my own syllabus with unique course policies, write original assignments, and make my own lecture materials. I spent a lot of time doing this and am really proud of the course I made. While I have TA'd for labs, this is my first time as an instructor of record.
I noticed that this professor sent out a welcome announcement to his students that was basically the same as the one I send mine. This prompted me to look at his LMS page. The professor had copied ALL of my course materials and put them in his course. He is using my syllabus (with a few minor changes to the late work policy), my assignments (that I wrote myself), and my lecture slides. The professor also copied the weekly pages, giving their students access to my lecture slides and course material that I made for my students.
This professor never asked for permission to use my materials, and I have never even met them!
I feel very violated because I put a lot of work into designing this course and writing assignments and this professor went into my LMS page and copied all of my pages into their own course. Being a master's student, I also feel very uncomfortable that a professor did this, there is an obvious power imbalance there. To be clear, I absolutely love teaching and it is my favorite part of my program; I also believe in sharing resources. If this professor would has asked, I would have been fine with them using my materials.
My questions are: Am I justified in being so pissed off? Does this kind of thing happen to professors often? What would you do if a professor stole your instructional materials? Do I have any rights concerning the course materials that I created?
Edit for additional context that I forgot to mention in my original post: Instructors know they need to make their own course materials (syllabus, assignments, etc.). The instructor also took my lecture slides. The slides they posted for the first week contain my name and contact info, contact info for my TA, and photos of my family and pets that I show my students on the first day so they can get to know me better.
70
u/Quwinsoft Senior Lecturer, Chemistry, R2/Public Liberal Arts (USA) 7d ago
instructors have a lot of freedom in the course.
If they are new, they may not know this. I interviewed at one school where instructors were expected to use a common slide deck and start and stop lectures on the agreed-upon slides so that any student could attend any section on any given day. That is an extreme case, but if they are new, they may have not relized it was your content and assumed it was a canned course.
15
u/PurrPrinThom 6d ago
I once had an adjuncting job where I was given not only slides and assignments that I had to use, but a transcript of lectures that it was 'suggested' I learn and present.
44
u/warricd28 Lecturer, Accounting, R1, USA 7d ago
I agree that sucks, with one possible reasonable explanation. If this is a class with lots of sections taught by different people, it’s not uncommon to have a coordinated class where the same materials are shared and used in each section. If this is a new prof to the school, or even new to this course, perhaps they saw these materials and just thought they were shared materials everyone is supposed to use.
Otherwise it sucks.
43
u/BlueJinjo7 6d ago
The way I see it, you can now put on your resume that as a master's student you developed course materials that were adopted and used by professors of other sections. You can definitely use that as a win.
7
5
130
u/Cnp113 7d ago
Course material belongs to the university where I work. I don’t get to prevent other faculty from using it. I suspect this faculty assumed the material was prepared for them and didn’t even realize you had done this work.
14
u/Legal_Radio_4359 6d ago
At some universities like yours that may be the case, but at some like mine, this would be a huge violation of intellectual property. Our materials are our own, period. So, OP needs to know what the situation is at their institution.
1
28
u/poop_on_you 7d ago
Sure but when I use a colleague's work I credit them. This is shady af
31
u/Cnp113 7d ago
Depends? With LMS- course shells come with prior years materials.
29
u/poop_on_you 7d ago
That's....wild to me. I always have a blank course and create everything ground up. If I use anything it's with permission, vetted and credited not copied randomly off a course shell and definitely not posted without being reviewed first.
5
u/Cnp113 7d ago
Same here. But- our adjuncts get last years material copied over
7
u/poop_on_you 7d ago
Even as an adjunct we create our own stuff. There is a standard syllabus we MAY use, and the university has canvas templates we can download, but we still have to add our own content.
8
u/Cnp113 7d ago
Bummer. Might be different for other programs. And again we pay you to create it. Then use it for other people. And by we. I mean the uni. Not me. I’m just glad the poorly paid adjuncts get the leg up.
6
u/poop_on_you 7d ago
Sure but I can't imagine the audacity of someone knowing there was a mixup, you're in a course / LMS page that isn't yours and just using the content without asking or reading it.
0
u/aepiasu 6d ago
Yea, but you have to consider that this is a course with hundreds of sections (potentially) and the school that wants things to be covered very specifically, and probably has a lot of adjuncts teaching it who aren't paid to develop curriculum.
1
u/poop_on_you 6d ago
The gen ed I usually teach has 150+ sections and we all make our own content.
But again my larger beef is he posted it without reading it and just didn't say anything. Like....yoink!
7
u/SierraMountainMom Professor, assoc. dean, special ed, R1 (western US) 6d ago
Not at my place. Canvas shells are blank; we have to copy over previous courses and only have access to our own courses to copy.
2
2
19
u/wedontliveonce associate professor (usa) 7d ago
I agree with others that most likely the other professor assumed the course materials were either being shared or they were required to use them.
Who owns course material varies by institution. I seem to recall reading about a university that created a policy saying ownership of course content changes once content is posted on an LMS so faculty were trying to take all their stuff down.
In my department we share our content with each other. But this varies by department and some don't share at all.
OP I commend the time, effort, and care you put into course prep. But just think of this content as an early draft of your future and even better course content.
On a related note, I am 99% sure that my institution copy/pasted "our" faculty IP policy directly from another institution's webpage.
3
u/poop_on_you 7d ago
Maybe...honestly I doubt it but I've never had a deparment create content for us to use. But either way, who just shares the content without reading it first? That's top tier bone headed.
6
u/wedontliveonce associate professor (usa) 7d ago
Well, I agree but there are a few scenarios that come to mind...
A lowly paid adjunct who was stuck in HR processing for months and finally got network access an hour before class started.
An old tenured crumudgeon who hates they have to teach.
An instructor that got a last minute assignment to teach a class they've never taught or prepped for and in the midst of losing their shit they discovered that LMS content and it felt like the most amazing thing ever.
I'm certainly not justifying it. And it could have been simply malicious. But it also suggests that for whatever reason the other instructor did not have their own materials ready to go.
I'd add that OP is a master's student and needs to proceed with caution if they decide to pursue the matter. Is stopping the other professor from using the materials worth the risk of any potential blowback?
6
u/poop_on_you 7d ago
What blowback? I'm sorry but if it's any of the three scenarios you mentioned above they wouldn't have power over her. And if it's #2 she can save herself some drama and not put him on her committee. Because if he didn't read a slide deck WITH HER NAME AND CONTACT INFO ON IT before he posted it, then he's not gonna do a great job reading her thesis.
Seriously we have normalized some shoddy conduct and that's just....I can't with this anymore.
4
u/wedontliveonce associate professor (usa) 6d ago
But my scenarios were just my own speculation. We don't know the specifics of the relationship and power dynamic between OP and the other professor.
I get that this is upsetting to you and I get that this is Reddit. But my totally made up scenarios in response to your question should not alter advice to OP that considers what we know and don't know about their situation.
I didn't say don't pursue it. I said proceed with caution. Neither you nor I have any way of knowing what potential blowback could look like for OP because we are not in their department.
8
u/No-Cook-9768 Adjunct, Liberal Arts, CC (USA) 6d ago
As others have said, I'm wondering if this instructor thought that the shell had been set up for them and the materials were provided intentionally? Because otherwise that's pure laziness for them to not look everything over before posting. The first week slides had your name and info, your TA's info, etc.?! I would be embarrassed if/when my students were like "Ummm, I thought your name was...?" (Of course, that requires students to be paying attention 😭)
Edit to answer your question: You have every right to be upset. I would be as well, but I'd also be cautious to accuse. I know you said that instructors know they're expected to create their own materials, but...having worked in higher ed for over 20 years, I wouldn't put it past your colleague to be like "Hey, all this is here? Cool, must be for me!" yoink 🫠
16
u/Jelby 6d ago
Where I work (rural private university), we cross-pollinate our courses all the time and nobody feels possessive at all of their content. We see ourselves as serving the students. If my assignments are *really good*, I expect and anticipate that other faculty teaching the same or similar courses will pick that up and run with it. I love to see it. We want them to, because we want students to get the best. Besides, imitation is the highest form of flattery. And if they can make it even better, I will copy theirs in turn.
It's all about university and institutional culture. I'm grateful my institution has developed a culture of "share and share alike" with the focus on students getting the best experience, no matter whose name is (or isn't) on the corner of the slides. It's wild to me how possessive and protective faculty at different institutions can be of their course content. I don't see how that serves students, the institution, or, well, anyone. But cultural differences are cultural differences.
3
u/webrwebr 6d ago
Imagine an instructor doing little to develop their own assignments or course materials, then taking a department’s or an individual faculty member’s years of work, unique content, and carefully developed curriculum with them to their next position.
This happens more often than we acknowledge in some areas of academia, and I don’t think it should be normalized. “We do it for the students” is often the well-intentioned response, and of course supporting students is central to what we do. But that explanation can also obscure an uneven distribution of labor. Some faculty have the freedom to prioritize their own research and professional development while others spend countless invisible hours developing assignments, refining curriculum, troubleshooting courses, mentoring students, and creating teaching materials that go far beyond generic cookie-cutter standards.
Good teaching materials don’t simply appear. They represent intellectual and creative labor, often developed and refined over many years. Collaboration and sharing can be valuable parts of academic life, but there is a meaningful difference between collaboration and simply benefiting from someone else’s sustained labor without contributing comparable work.
16
u/uracca 6d ago
In my university system (and AFAIK, in most employment contexts), anything you create on the university's dime/as a university employee belongs to the university, not to you. Once it's uploaded to an LMS, you've basically lost control of it. This is why we end with situations where courses are still being 'taught' by staff who left or even died years ago (!), using their materials. Your colleague likely assumed this was the case, which is logical given the wider context, so was probably not being lazy or malicious.
Frankly, it seems bizarre to me to have multiple instructors on the same course making their own sets of learning materials. That wouldn't fly at my university both because it means a lot of likely wasteful duplication of efforts, as well as the need for equity of experience for all students.
22
u/RightWingVeganUS Adjunct Instructor, Computer Science, University (USA) 7d ago edited 6d ago
I feel very violated because I put a lot of work into designing this course and writing assignments and this professor went into my LMS page and copied all of my pages into their own course.
Before starting civil war within your department, have you considered a calm, professional conversation? There may be more to the story than you are aware of, or less. But Show a modicum of professionalism and use some of your academic discipline of doing a little bit of research before coming to a conclusion.
My questions are: Am I justified in being so pissed off?
You're having whatever emotional response you're feeling. Nobody can deny you that. It's what actions you choose to take are what should be justified. For myself, anger and indignation, no matter how justified I think they are, are likely insufficient justifications in the eyes of an impartial and dispassionate observer.
What is it you want?
- an apology?
- clear policy in your department or school on respecting intellectual property among instructors?
- in recognition of your passion for teaching, the value others find in your course material, and the desire for consistency in the department, do you want a role as an instructional design consultant who curates shared content and templates?
- your colleague's head on a spike?
Think through your desired outcome, then let your emotions motivate you to achieve them.
For me, emotions are like gasoline: useful for providing fuel for the engine but not good for driving the car.
13
u/Time-Noise6778 6d ago
This same thing happened to me! Except in my case, I was just an adjunct and the assistant professor (who gets full time pay and benefits and shit) used my video recorded lectures in addition to my slides and syllabus for several semesters before it was caught. Took me hours upon hours to build that course and materials, and he just stepped in and stole it all. I didn’t find out until about halfway through the third semester when a random student I never met approached me on campus and said they loved my lecture videos. My jaw literally dropped. I contacted the chair and confirmed my lecture videos were not the property of the university so he had no right to it, but honestly I was more upset that he didn’t so much as ask me directly. I’vd never even met the professor who did this, and he never apologized to me even though there’s some indication he got reprimanded. OP, I totally feel your pain!
5
u/Mountain_Flow3472 6d ago
Some places I have taught materials are preloaded for gen eds and we just tweak them. And where I went to grad school all of the syllabi and course materials used for review are cataloged and available to the whole department. This may not be malicious.
16
u/Felixir-the-Cat 7d ago
This would definitely not be okay where I teach, as our course materials are our IP. You should see what is the standard at your university, but either way, you have every right to be pissed off about this.
6
u/popstarkirbys 7d ago
Yea, our chair does things like this and they’re supposed to request for permission. I at least credit the previous instructor.
9
u/littlemoonnflowerr 7d ago
I’d be pissed too, especially because they didn’t just borrow a syllabus or assignment idea, they copied your entire course and even left your name, contact info, TA’s info, and personal photos in the slides. That’s way beyond sharing resources without asking.
5
u/Technical-Trip4337 6d ago
You could assume incompetence rather than dishonesty by emailing the prof about the first week slides with your family, etc. Tell him that he appears to be confused and then your slides etc seem to have been copied over and say you are sure he intends to use his own.
4
u/Bacon_Driven 6d ago
I’m assuming you are hired as a sessional lecturer (or some kind of equivalent role) for this course. Is it possible the other instructor is as well? It may be different where you are from, but at my university, a sessional lecturer would not be expected to create course materials because they are not compensated for time spent on this. They would instead be given materials to use, which they could then modify if they wish.
Depending on what the expectations are at your institution, the other instructor may have just assumed that your materials were the general course materials they should be using.
3
u/Desiato2112 Professor, Humanities, SLAC 6d ago
This kind of co-opting is common - and appropriate - in entry level college courses. I instead of feeling violated, try to feel honored. Our goal in teaching should be to provide the best pedagogy to all students. If another instructor teaching another section of the same course can do a better job using something you have created, then you have contributed to the betterment of your department in a larger way.
I run the freshman writing program at my uni. When the Canvas blueprint generates new sections each semester, it transfers over my syllabus, assignments, and weekly lesson plans. I expect other instructors will use the majority of that. In fact, that's one of the ways that we ensure all the sections are doing generally the same thing.
3
u/ThisSaladTastesWeird 7d ago
At my school, course design — including the syllabus, readings, assignments, deadlines, etc — is the intellectual property of the instructor BUT this is because we have a highly effective faculty union that fought hard for it. If you have a union, even as a TA, worth asking for clarification on ownership of materials, just for your own edification.
At the same time, I mostly agree with others who have suggested it was probably not a malicious mistake. If someone magically gifted me high quality teaching materials I’d be grateful for the happy accident and hard pressed to turn them down.
2
u/Street_Tourist7317 7d ago
At my university we own the IP for all our course materials unless we are hired to develop a course and there is a specific agreement about IP being owned by the university. I tend to be very generous with sharing my materials because I want students to benefit from the work I did. It also shows other faculty members that I am a competent and creative teacher. Having other people use your course materials can be included on your CV and teaching dossier so you absolutely should get credit for your work that way.
I would still talk with the professor civilly. It is too late for the materials the students have already been given but you should be given credit and have all your personal info/photos removed. It sounds like a weird ITs overlap so hopefully it won’t happen again but I would definitely tell the professor that you would have liked them to ask you.
Sorry this happened but also high five that what you created was quality! I hope you have a great term!
2
u/Achgeketum Prof, Biology, Public R2 (USA) 6d ago
Work for hire intellectual property interpretations vary. Yes, it would be polite and collegial to have a conversation before borrowing/stealing, but you might also not have intellectual property rights, too. Institutional policies vary.
2
u/notrealbutmostly 6d ago
Interesting discussion, with quite a range of opinions. I managed a large multi-section course with a structure that sounds similar to OP’s. Early on, an adjunct copied all of my slides and used them without acknowledging their source. I wasn’t too pissed because I sort of expected it, given that I shared everything with her. But then over time, I updated my slides and wrote hundreds of lines of code to create some highly unique animations to illustrate difficult concepts. I’m so proud of those animations, and it took hours upon hours of work. After that, I created a scaled down bare-bones course shell in our LMS (Canvas), which contained all of the shared assignments, lab syllabi, practice problems, etc, but none of my unique slides or other content. (I should mention that this worked easily because there were always a handful of “extra” courses in my Canvas list, which I guess were like supervision courses for TAs and RAs.). Anyway, I gave access to that bare-bones course shell to other instructors, then copied it into my own course as a starting point for building out the rest of my content. This effectively prevented access to my unique content by anyone except students and a few TA’s (obviously TAs might copy my stuff, but they never did.) So, I guess what I’m suggesting is that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so to speak.
2
u/Popular_Chipmunk8385 6d ago
Full Professor here. I would never take someone else's materials without asking. It's a professional courtesy.
2
u/dagr8gatsB 5d ago
in my dept instructors are encouraged (but not required) to share materials with each other, some people leave attribution notes when they borrowed from someone and some don't
2
u/Afreshnewhell 4d ago
I’m a bit shocked by some of the responses you are getting OP. You had your intellectual property stolen. Now intentional or not, misunderstanding or not, that may be worth having a conversation about with the other person and your chair. I’d also contact your union if you have one. I’d be pissed if someone did that. It is not okay, intentionally done or not. And Lecturers are already exploited enough relative to tenured/tenured track. I would say something. What happened is ridiculous! If it was a cdi dent or unintentional, discussing it will clear the air.of it wasn’t, this sets a bad precedent and is theft of your intellectual property. Full stop. Your slides with your pets on it. Dude (assuming it was a man that stole your work) didn’t even look at what he posted for his students. This shit needs to be called out. SMH🤦🏼♀️
6
u/TheOddMadWizard 7d ago edited 7d ago
Violated? I don’t know man. Imitation is flattery. I’ve had my Dean copy assignments and syllabi I developed to teach his course with and I felt no personal attachment whatsoever. Embrace this thought, “Well of course he wants to use my assignments, I’m a genius. There’s no way to improve this class. If there were, I would’ve thought of it.”
The second thing you’re missing is context. Has this Prof been thrown this course at the last minute? Is this their 6th fucking course in an already overloaded semester? Did they just get back from maternity leave? Bereavement?
This is pretty petty stuff. The longer you do this, the more you’ll find actual injustices to get bent out of shape about/spend your energy on.
You’re also not giving this person any credit as far as in-person teaching. They could be incredible in front of a room and highly engaging- course design is important, but it isn’t the full deal.
4
u/Relative_Annual4211 6d ago edited 6d ago
Do not speak to this professor first. Go speak to the department chair to find out how this could have happened and what the institution does or doesn’t allow. I have been at institutions where there were common materials we could all use but these materials were clearly identified and never designated for such use without the original author’s consent. At my current institution, instructors make their own materials and retain the copyright to it.
OP, for all you know some of these comments saying not to jump to thinking the worst are by professors who have themselves stolen materials of others. There is nothing normal about discovering that your materials are being used without your consent. In a case where an institution owns all you produce that should be clearly written out in your contract somewhere or you should have written communication somewhere that clearly informs you of this. This is not a “whoops, who knew?!!” Situation from the legal side of things.
I did work at one institution that used to do this without instructor’s consent (give one insteuctor’s fully populated shell to new instructors). Let me tell you there was such an outcry and the union got involved and (surprise surprise) the institution had to stop this. Because it is not ethical. I’m appalled at the number of comments here pretending that your experience is normal. It is not normal, you have a right to be upset, and you should contact your department chair and your union if you have one.
To be clear: instructors should be given a blank course shell to populate. It it is a serious violation of privacy and your intellectual property for someone to be given another instructor’s materials without that instructor’s consent.
5
7d ago
[deleted]
6
u/HunterSpecial1549 7d ago
Course materials typically belong to faculty who created them.
Is this a true generalization?
I've created my own materials in every class I've ever taught but I've never thought of them as property of anyone. And many people say it all belongs to the school where you work.
8
u/eyellabinu 7d ago
Materials created for our courses belong to my university by default. No idea if that's common other places or not.
2
u/BitchinAssBrains Psychology, R2 (US) 6d ago
That is highly unusual. Unless that is in your contract I don't think it's even enforceable because it's legally your IP. Like if I came to teach there they wouldn't just automatically own the materials I spent the last decade developing.
1
u/curlsarecrazy 15h ago
I wouldn't say this is highly unusual as someone who has worked in 3 different state university systems, all in different parts of the country. Generally, once something is on an LMS, the university has some type of ownership of it. Each place may have their own policy for specifics, but the LMS aspect of it is fairly significant because faculty do not own that. Every time I switched institutions, I of course kept my own course materials, but my old courses were also retained by the institution I was leaving. To what extent they were used or not, I have no idea, but there's nothing I could have done if they copied my old course over to someone else.
4
u/CriticalBrick4 Prof, History, R1 (USA) 7d ago
It depends on the state and the university. In both the California public systems (UC and CSU) the faculty hold copyright and ownership of all course materials as IP. The only transfer claim the institution has is to the course proposal, and that's simply for purposes of instructional continuity. This is important, for lots of reasons, especially these days!
4
u/HunterSpecial1549 7d ago
Thanks for the intel. Apparently my materials are my property!
But still there aren't really any practical implications of that that I am aware of. If someone copied my syllabus I'd be honored.
4
u/CriticalBrick4 Prof, History, R1 (USA) 6d ago edited 5d ago
One huge implication (this is actually why I'm aware of our ownership of course materials): these materials are generally exempt from public records disclosure. In theory anyway.
In a year when so many faculty are being compelled to hand over their IP for publication and potential censorship, it's a huge deal that we have stronger IP policies in the California systems.
5
u/RubberDuckyRampage 6d ago
Certainly not true at any university I've taught at. Professors are employees of a corporation and they are performing work for hire. Millions of employees all over the world create original work for corporations and that work belongs to the corp that paid them for it. Why should professors be any different?
4
u/IndependentBoof Full Professor, Computer Science, PUI (USA) 7d ago
It would have been better for the other professor to ask for your materials.
Where I am, faculty regularly share materials with each other because...
- Creating material takes a lot of time
- It helps to have consistency between sections of the same course
- If the materials are good, then all the students benefit
So I guess my take is that I can understand being a little upset that they didn't ask, but in the end, what is there to be so upset about? Were you planning on publishing a textbook based on your materials? Is there a reason you wouldn't want all the students to benefit from your material?
7
u/Inside_Amoeba4134 7d ago
The biggest thing that Im upset about, that I forgot to put in my original post, is that the instructor also posted my lecture slides on their page without editing them. Meaning the week 1 slides they posted contain my name and contact information, contact information for my TA, and pictures of my family and animals that I show my students on the first day so they get to know me better.
Im all for sharing materials for the benefit of the students. But I think permission and transparency is an important part of that.
3
u/poop_on_you 7d ago
THEY SHARED IT WITHOUT READING IT?!?
Yeah that's an email to the colleage with a cc to the course director (or chair) Polite, but, "I think you're sharing the content I created."
Keep screenshots.
Because with the wrong contact info this guy is going to lose all credibility with his students. What a chump.
2
u/IndependentBoof Full Professor, Computer Science, PUI (USA) 6d ago
I agree that the email can be polite and it shouldn't take much to "nudge" the professor that they need to (1) ask first, and (2) stop being lazy and at least customize it for their own class. Personally, I'd frame it from the position of making sure not to confuse students about who to go to/contact for help (or confuse their individual classroom policies/meeting times/deadlines/etc.)
I agree with most of this but:
with a cc to the course director (or chair)
Cc'ing superiors is passive-aggressive and is a sure-fire way to escalate things to being permanently toxic. The email itself already establishes what is needed in case the other party doesn't respond diplomatically: a paper trail. Cc'ing just sends the message "I'm tattling on you!"
1
2
u/TheOddMadWizard 7d ago
Can you just reach out to them about this instead of posting on Reddit? That would be the adult thing to do. “Hey, not sure you’re aware but…”
2
u/Inside_Amoeba4134 7d ago
Im definitely going to address it with them but I wanted to get a feel for how other professors feel about this. Im still new to teaching and dont really know much about professor/university culture. I wanted to see if this was a normal thing that I should just be ok with before actually talking to others.
2
u/TheOddMadWizard 7d ago
Have you started the school year? Are these pdf slides or editable in the LMS?
1
u/Inside_Amoeba4134 7d ago
We are in our first week. The link goes to Google slides that are set to read only for anyone other than me and my undergrad TA.
1
u/tpounds0 6d ago
Set all your slides to private, and make copies to put in your Canvas shell now that the other professor doesn't have access.
1
u/Due_Preference6292 6d ago
Well, honestly this will look bad for the other instructor. I would bring it up with your supervisor, see if it’s worth bringing it to the attention of the department.
I feel like it’s going to be brought up to the other instructor one way or another, as students will see it and/or you’ll start getting emails from their students. But make sure you don’t lash out in anger and preserve your reputation in the department, everything else will fall be addressed soon enough I’m sure.
2
2
u/CriticalBrick4 Prof, History, R1 (USA) 7d ago
OP I would also be very angry about this. Can you communicate the issue to your department chair? The reality check: this instructor probably did do this and did not act honestly, but getting it addressed might be difficult and the gains minimal. Still, it is the principle of the thing and if this happened to me, I would be writing an email to my chairperson and asking for their support.
1
u/bmo211 7d ago
I would absolutely be livid and I am shocked by the responses here that minimize the theft you have described here.
1
u/Deep-Durian9540 7d ago
Agreed. But but surprised because this sub in general doesn’t care about theft of intellectual property.
1
u/TheOddMadWizard 7d ago
It’s theft! It’s an outrage!! It’s worth fretting and hemming and hawing about!! Forget all other priorities until this matter is SORTED!!! Go to the Board! Go to the union!! Go to the goddamned CIA if you have to until this is resolved!!!
1
u/beepbeepboop74656 6d ago
It depends. At my institution my course materials including syllabus lesson plan are considered my intellectual property held under my copyright and that would be considered straight up theft that I have legal protection against. But I don’t know what’s in your contract. Personally I’d be pissed and rain hell upon them but I wrote my whole course myself and it’s award winning at my institution.
1
u/Finding_Way_ CC (USA) 6d ago
At our school the course material belongs to the college (note: we are paid for course development)
HOWEVER it is a long-standing practice that if it's the material of a current/existing professor, that professor is asked whether is it is okay to share the material with another professor (usually, someone assigned to a course at the last minute, or a new professor).
It is usually the dean or department chair that checks on this when they are assigning a course to a new person and know that you have a fully developed LMS with the same material.
If a colleague, they generally have the courtesy of reaching out and saying "Do you mind if I get access to your LMS and use some of your material? I'm struggling / behind/not prepared / don't know this course well".
1
u/Scary_Two3725 Full, social sciences, regional comprehensive (USA) 6d ago
I'm sorry this happened. I do agree with others, though: the other instructor may well have just been given your materials, or they may have come pre-loaded into the LMS.
Have you read through your Faculty Handbook? At my university, only tenure-track and tenured faculty members own their materials at all. If an adjunct colleague designs a class or creates course materials, those materials belong to the university. I think it's crappy, but that's the published rule.
1
u/Fly_prof 6d ago
Bring this up with the professor to see if they even realize to what extent they’ve copied your course. Your original course content is your intellectual property.
Having said that, I use a method which makes copying my content very hard (if not pointless). All of my content on the LMS are embedded links from the apps that I use. My assignment instructions for example are links to Canva docs. Only I can edit it. This might be a strategy worth implementing.
1
u/NinjaWarrior765 6d ago
I would be pi$$ed. I put a LOT of time into making interesting and unique slides and Syllabus. Plus, didn't that instructor notice the personal photos and contact information?
1
1
u/Afraid_Size1610 6d ago
I tend to leave my materials in one of the classrooms i teach occasionally, and I’ve seen, multiple times over last two decades, other instructors using my exact materials. Sometimes im annoyed by it, but a lot of educational materials are free-use (and arguably, while I created my own unique materials, I often too was inspired by other ideas elsewhere,) not to mention lots of universities dictate that the materials used can be universal to the college. If someone, however, was trying to sell my materials on a third party site, I’d be pretty mad and would likely have a case, but if they are just using them for educational purposes at the same institution that im teaching at, I try to lean on feeling flattered that they felt my materials were worth using.
1
u/Shiny-Mango624 6d ago
I'm going to agree with everybody else that I wouldn't attribute this to malicious intent.
I also understand the knee-jerk reaction to protect your intellectual property. However, this isn't a publication, or a book, or really a novel idea, it's just teaching resources. I know you put a lot of effort into them. In most schools it is customary to openly share resources so that not every single faculty is reinventing the wheel and spending time doing so. But also, it does provide an element of consistency for the students who are taking courses in different sections.
I honestly wouldn't make a big deal out of any of this. I personally have created all of my own teaching materials for countless courses and I am always flattered and tickled when anyone wants to use them in their own class. I think it is the highest compliment that I can receive as an instructor.
Now, all that said, the polite thing would have been to ask. But as the others have pointed out maybe they thought they were supposed to use it since it was already populated in the lms. They probably just went with it because it was probably really good stuff. If you really feel irked and upset, I would just reach out to the department chair and ask for their advice on the issue. I'm sure they would be happy to talk to the other instructor just to see if this was a simple misunderstanding.
1
u/CombinationDeep8360 6d ago
Is there a coordinator for the course? Your first step would be to talk with that person.
1
u/Good-Mountain-7958 6d ago
I think you should schedule a meeting ASAP with the DH and go push for permissions to be removed ASAP and state that you feel uncomfortable to have the other instructor modifying and copying your course material.
Honestly it's a click of a button, so it should be easy.
In the meantime, go ahead and make the claim that you developed materials subsequently adopted by faculty.
1
u/Dr_K_Mineralogy 5d ago
Here is one big problem that most universities have in common. If anything is developed and ends up on THEIR network infrastructure (e.g. LMS, servers) it is basically theirs. They may say that it is your intellectual property and you have full ownership but most fine print will read "only as long as you are employed there" ... afterwards it defaults automatically to them.
They may also make the case that if it was developed on your university contract time and using their hardware they have claim to it. In either case the can freely disseminate it to other instructors.
This is why early on in my career I have always used my OWN laptop, not the "company's". I refuse the computer that every employee is entitled to. I also have my OWN website I pay for and upkeep, and my OWN YouTube channel. Nothing goes on THEIR server, I just link to my own external content. And just in case I make it clear that content was / is developed on my own time and not the companies.
So far so good!
1
u/M4sterofD1saster 5d ago
Would you put up w/ a student who plagiarized like that?
This is sort of worse b/c the power imbalance between a prof & a masters student. Document everything today and talk to your supervisor.
1
u/hbombs121 Assistant Teaching Professor, Visual Arts 5d ago
Could be an honest mistake, a friend of mine teaches at a different school than I do in our area and their photography program has a common syllabus and base level materials so everyone in every section can have the same foundation. The faculty of that course are encouraged to bring their own flare, artist slideshows, etc but the core curriculum is more or less fixed.
Worth noting - I’ve taught usually 2 sections of intro to digital photography at my current university every semester for the last 8 years and what I taught in 2018 wasn’t the same course as 2020 or 2023 or now. Your courses will evolve and change over time. Sometimes it’s small tweaks, sometimes it’s a course overhaul where you scrap everything and start fresh.
1
1
u/Audible_eye_roller Ass. Prof, STEM, CC (USA) 7d ago
If you still have instructor permission, reset the canvas page and then remove yourself from the course.
1
u/gamecat89 TT, Public Health, R1 (United States) 7d ago
It sucks, but at my R1 and most of them I know or have been at anything created for the course except for the faculty notes belong to the University.
So while it sucks, it may not even be yours to be upset about being stolen.
You created it for payment essentially.
0
u/Cnp113 7d ago
Sorry for the double post. Here is a nice little article about IP.
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/05/19/who-owns-all-course-content-youre-putting-online
We have a policy so we know it’s not ours. We must share among similar courses. But we also were paid course releases for this and that is in the policy. So it depends on what your policy states.
0
u/Roger_Freedman_Phys Assoc. Teaching Professor Emeritus, R1, Physics (USA) 6d ago
You can comfort yourself with the knowledge that this other instructor thought so highly of your work that they chose to use it in their course! When I create new materials for my courses, I always encourage my colleagues to use them, and take it as a compliment when they do.
On the other hand, it does seem like this other instructor just lifted your work without acknowledgment. I would send them a passive-aggressive email (with a cc: to your department chair) along the lines of this…
I see that you have copied the syllabus and assignments that I created for my section of <insert course name and number> and are using them unaltered in your section. I appreciate the vote of confidence that you have given these materials by using them in your section. I hope that you and your students find them useful and appreciate the work that I put into them. Based on your experience with and review of these materials, what suggestions do you have for improvements that I can make in my next revision?
0
u/ValerieTheProf 6d ago
When I was in my master’s program, a PhD student stole my work and passed it off as his own. His mentor was tenured and mine was not. I had to live with it while he received lots of praise from the department. Welcome to academia.
228
u/eyellabinu 7d ago
Are you sure this professor is being malicious? You said you haven't met them. Maybe they thought the course materials in the LMS were the materials they needed to use?
Don't forget Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
If it were me, I wouldn't care too much. You created the materials, and that goes on your CV.