Intellectual Property

All courses designed at Unity College should be original and generated by a SME. A SME’s expertise in the field gives them the perspective necessary to create learning experiences that are authentic and unique - in both style and content. Courses cannot be built in majority nor adapted from pre-existing, “canned” content providers such as Pearson or McGraw Hill. Any unoriginal content must be limited in amount to the maximums (in page count, minutes, etc.) defined for learning materials to be read/reviewed/watched each week, and student use of that unoriginal content must be entirely in support of completing the original assignments.

In the brainstorming process, SMEs may copy/paste or draw on other materials to begin their thinking and generating. At this phase, some resources or ideas in the development folder may not necessarily be fully original. This is acceptable for the early stages of any development while SMEs are organizing their ideas, but all content from elsewhere always should be labeled as such, and appropriately cited, with the intent that it be replaced at some point by original work done by the SME.

Note for LXDs: If you notice a SME is copying and pasting from various materials, you can approach them with something like the following:

This looks great, but it appears this isn't original language. One of the things we really strive for in these courses is originality. Students are paying a lot for an experience unique to and developed for Unity.

The final product of any development can and probably should make occasional use of quoted text and resources from other sources. Where use in excess of a quoted line here and there from external sources is intended, link out to the resources instead, with language like “review this article/ this org’s statement”. Remind SMEs that we expect them to author original content. It is better to be direct and overly cautious than the alternative.

In rare cases, you may encounter a SME who is intentionally passing another person’s work as their own. Some obvious things to look for would be font, size, and color inconsistencies that indicate text has been copy/pasted from another source. The “See Revision History” in Google Docs can also show if whole blocks of text appeared all at once. Some more subtle identifiers would be a shift in the writing quality or tone. This can be more difficult if you do not have existing writing from the SME to which you can compare the new text.

No two plagiarism situations are the same, and so these guidelines must be applied on a case by case basis, and when in doubt, consult other team members. The issue of plagiarism can often go unnoticed until late in the development timeline, at which point in time it can be difficult to encompass what is and is not original. When in doubt, google the one or two sentences that don’t look right to see if they come from an existing article or resource. Keep in mind, some course elements have more complicated issues of originality and intellectual property.

SMEs are often used to including textbook-based activities, such as problem sets or quizzes. These may have answer keys online that students can easily find via sites such as Course Hero or Chegg, and in the online course format, these resources are difficult if not impossible to combat. It is recommended that the ID check some quiz questions by googling them to see if answer keys are accessible. If so, advise the SME on how they can adapt questions or generate new ones to provide a better learning experience.

In terms of incorporating resources that students would otherwise be required to purchase, we have latitude under Fair Use. Fair Use is a legal framework that gives us permission to break copyright. It doesn't modify the rules of copyright, but rather overrules them if the correct criteria are met. See Fair Use for guidance on Fair Use copyright exemptions.

If a textbook is being purchased, it is good practice to include the first chapter in the Week One learning materials. This gives students time to access the book. A note should be included in the learning materials that reminds students they still need to purchase the book: “*Please note, only the first week’s readings from the textbook are provided for your convenience. You are still required to purchase the textbook for future readings.” This is an example of Fair Use because we are not distributing the textbook freely online; access will be to the students in this course, only, behind the Canvas login. Furthermore, students are still required to purchase the book, meaning that we're not impacting the sales of the book in any way.