Thread: Who owns the teaching material?

Hello everyone,

I have a long-term plan to have my own school. In the mean time, I want to prepare some teaching materials. I am thinking to hire some instructors to help me for the preparation. I will ask each instructor to prepare specific modules in the their area of expertize. For example mathematics, I may ask one instructor to prepare only Algebra part and another Geometry part and the like. Then i will hire some chief editors to edit , combine, and form a complete teaching material. I, myself, also will participate in the preparation. If I get it done in the above procedure, who own/s the the material/s? could the instructors claim that they own a part of the material? It is i think some legal issue but I want to open it for discussion here.

Thank you everyone,

Infinity.

P.S: Instructors (higher education Proffs)

This will depend on the laws of the country in which you are resident. However, in nearly every case you can address this by having the creators of the material sign a contract in which it is clearly stated that any work produced under that contract becomes your intellectual property. You do not need to have participated in its creation for this to be so.

You might be worth consulting a lwayer versed in Employment Law to help you draw up a suitable contract.

Thank you for your suggestion. I expect some more sugstions and comments from other members.

Originally Posted by Ophiolite

This will depend on the laws of the country in which you are resident. However, in nearly every case you can address this by having the creators of the material sign a contract in which it is clearly stated that any work produced under that contract becomes your intellectual property. You do not need to have participated in its creation for this to be so.

You might be worth consulting a lwayer versed in Employment Law to help you draw up a suitable contract.

Along the lines of what Ophiolite has said, in the US, it's all a matter of the work agreement.

Logically, it's your property because an expert would have no reason to make this "work product" if you had not asked and paid for it. An expert will use your specifications, develop the teaching materials, give them to you, and then walk away. It logically belongs to you.

It might be different if, for example, you hired these experts to teach at your school and to develop their own curriculum. Then their teaching materials might be considered as their own, especially if they taught as contractors instead of employees.

Along with Ophiolite, I say put the agreement in writing (which, I think, everyone would want to do anyway), signed and dated. The contract should at least include: the identification (and addresses) of the people involved, the description of the product (depth of detail and scope of the material to cover), the form of the product (electronic or hardcopy), the date(s) of delivery, the price and the payment schedule, and contingencies (cancellation of contract by you or them, failures to meet delivery dates, etc).

Two forms which come immediately to mind are:

Non-disclosure Agreement (NDA)
Statement/Scope of Work (SOW)

Thank you for your explanations! I still make the topic open for anyone who has experience in this matter to give me some more suggestions.

Infinity.

Originally Posted by Infinity

Thank you for your explanations! I still make the topic open for anyone who has experience in this matter to give me some more suggestions.

Infinity.

If you expect experts to roduce these materials for you, to in essence write a book on the subject, and for the intellectual property to be yours, you will have tpay them verey well. Remember that with similar effort they could write a text, with an author's piece of the action, and credit for authorship in the professional community.