RATIONALE

Learning resources and other materials created by school staff in the course of their employment are an important asset and form a large part of the school’s intellectual capital.

The open and free exchange of information, knowledge and resources, and the collaborative production of copyright works that are made freely available allows our students’ access to a wider range of high quality learning resources and materials than would otherwise be possible.

The purpose of this policy is to encourage staff to share their work with others.

GUIDELINES

Therefore, the Board:

1. Recognizes that the Board of Newlands College holds first ownership of copyright of works produced by the Board’s employees in the course of their employment.
2. Delegates to the Principal the responsibility to:

1. Apply by default a Creative Commons Attribution License to all teaching materials and policies in which the Board of the school owns copyright.
2. Apply a Creative Commons Attribution license to other copyright works, aside from those described in (2).
3. Transfer to the original creator the copyright in created works licensed by the school under a Creative Commons Attribution or Creative Commons Share-Alike license.
4. Ensure that all staff are aware of the terms of this policy and how it relates to teaching resources they develop in the course of their employment at the school.

3. Does not make any claim over the ownership of copyright works produced by students. The copyright to these works remains with the creator.

4. Recognizes that this policy only applies to copyright works, and not to any other forms of intellectual property.

5. Recognizes that the copyright in works produced by an employee other than in the course of their employment by the Board remains the property of that employee. Where this is unclear, the process for dispute resolution, outlined below, shall apply.

Further, where the first ownership of copyright in a given work is disputed or unclear, the following process will apply:

1. In the first instance the dispute should be documented and presented to the Principal.
2. If the dispute is still not resolved then the documentation should be presented to the Chair of the Board .
3. If the dispute is still not resolved following a) and b), mediation with an appropriate authority will be undertaken.

6. The Principal shall institute Procedures pursuant to this policy.

Definitions

• Creative Commons: An international non-profit that provides free open licences that copyright holders can use to share their work.
  
  
• Teaching Materials: Copyright works produced by employees of the school for the purposes of teaching.