Vice Provost Ben Pryor has directed faculty to publically post on Blackboard the syllabus for all courses. Apparently this directive comes from UT President Lloyd Jacobs. If so, then President Jacobs does not understand the unintended consequences of his directive. This public posting on Blackboard is for the public, not for the students. Pryor does not explain why a faculty syllabus is to be publically posted for the entire world to see.  Meanwhile, our students could not access Blackboard until the first day of classes.   

Under the collective bargaining agreements and the Copyright Act, the copyright to course materials including syllabi belong to the faculty unless generated with more than 50% financial support from UT. Most faculty own the copyright and are free to do as they like with a syllabus. A nanny administrator cannot require faculty to share the syllabus with the world.  The syllabus is for students, not for the world.  

Faculty may not be aware that their proprietary class materials are already available on Blackboard for the world to read and copy. The class materials prepared and posted online by faculty can be viewed and copied using the guest preview  on Blackboard. The public can click on guest preview and copy course materials put online by the faculty for students. These materials include videos and PowerPoint presentations. Materials posted online for students are proprietary to the University and/or the faculty and should not be available to outside guests who can visit a class on Blackboard and copy at will. For example, these could include a patentable or trade secret discovery made in the lab and shared online by a research faculty with graduate students.

The guest preview has the risk of infringing a copyright owned by a third party. For example, a faculty or UT may pay Harvard for the right to use certain copyrighted material in a classroom. If this material is made available on Blackboard for the public to read and copy, this could be copyright infringement. Technical organizations such as SPIE sell copies of journal articles and conference proceedings for research and teaching, but public distribution is restricted. If a purchased SPIE article is placed online as course material for students and the public is given access to read and copy the article, this could be a copyright infringement.

The guest preview  may invalidate a claim of Fair Use under 17 U.S.C. 107 of the Copyright Act. Under the Fair Use exception, a faculty may borrow and use copyrighted materials such as a table for educational purposes in a classroom. A syllabus could also contain copyright material covered by Fair Use. Fair Use may not apply if copyrighted materials including a syllabus are published beyond the classroom for the world to read.

It is not clear whether the guest preview allows someone to drill into student materials online. If so, there is a FERPA issue.

In view of the legal pitfalls, what purpose is served by allowing public access to Blackboard so that the world can read and copy course materials at The University of Toledo? How do the University, its faculty, its students, and Ohio taxpayers benefit from such a system? The students pay for the courses and receive copyrighted materials while a guest off the street can access and copy the course materials for free.

After much hunt and click, it was discovered that the guest preview can be disabled. Faculty can individually decide whether to disable the guest preview or not. Faculty can also decide whether to publically post a syllabus or other course materials on Blackboard. I own the copyright for the syllabus and course materials created by me. Speaking only for myself, I do not intend to share these with the world. I am not publically posting my syllabus or any other materials. I will disable the guest preview and post the syllabus and other materials for my students.  If you have questions or comments, please contact Mary Jane Erard or me.  If you require assistance in disabling the guest preview, please contact Ben Pryor.  His contact information is:    

Office Phone: 419.530.2075

Cell: 419.277.2735
Email: benjamin.pryor@utoledo.edu

Fax: 419.530.8836