I, too, an writing this from home on my own computer via a link to the
University at 18.40.
In Australia, in many universities, everything that academics write is
the 'property' of the University, such that colleagues who were leaving
posts had to leave all lecture notes behind as they were University
property and covered by copyright.
Jean
Jean Hillier,
Newcastle University
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mark McGuinness
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2007 5:59 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Paying for academic journals
if you work in a UK based 'new' university look at your contract of
employment - it will almost certainly have a clause stating that you do
not have a 'defined working week', which on the one hand means they own
you during your waking hours (and during some sleeping ones too) and
potentially the IPR of the work you do on Friday nights and Saturdays,
but on the other also allows us to argue that we can, as you obviously
do, work from home legitimately if we feel we are able to do so, and
probably most of us do so at some point. Imagine if such arrangements
existed for Library Issue Desk staff, or in the Refectory. We do not
have to be in the office 9-5 Monday to Friday as this is clearly
inappropriate for the work we do - we may need to be in a library, at a
conference, in an archive, at a meeting, on a fieldtrip or basically
anywhere other than at the instant beck and call of increasingly
demanding students so that we can write up a paper. Having such
flexibility also unfortunately means we have to concede the possibility
that we might have to work at weekends to get the job done. We can't
have it both ways. Union reps will also know that the demands of not
having a defined working week also formed the basis of the Universities
and Colleges Union (UCU, the UK union for academics) argument that
harmonization of terms and conditions under the auspices of the joint
Framework Agreement (2004) should not mean the erosion of our 35 day
annual leave entitlement (and one or two other benefits we have managed
to hold on to in the face of management hostility).
Anyway, it's now 6pm and I'm the only one left in my building - apart
from the guy who empties the bins!
Mark
Dr Mark McGuinness
Subject Leader, Geography
Bath Spa University, UK
________________________________
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Dr Hillary Shaw
Sent: 13 November 2007 17:36
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Paying for academic journals
This could be a lawyer's paradise. Say I work at home as I've got no
teaching on a Friday pm, and all my research material is at home. By
4.59pm Friday I've written 3,000 words of an article. As there's
nothing on the telly I carry on writing and by Friday 7pm have done
3,500 words; a wet Saturday morning sees me up to 4,000 words by 11.30
am. Who owns the last 1,000 words? Does it make any difference if I
decide to get in late on Monday, as I've worked Saturday? If I'm still
'employed' Saturday, do they also own the garden rockery I created
Saturday afternoon? What if in fact Saturday I revise what I wrote
earlier and rewrite the first 1,000 words? If universities aren't
intending to employ all the world's lawyers tilll the end of the world,
why do they have such IPR policies - I've seen these things too, and
does anyone try and enforce them? Some institutions say they have IPR
to 'what you put on the university computer system' but as many of us
back up on our own machine also, this doesn't solve this legal
minefield.
PS if any law lecturer wants to use this as the basis for an exam
question, I willl NOT claim IPR on this email
Hillary Shaw, Newport, Shropshire
In a message dated 13/11/2007 16:38:46 GMT Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
Depending on your institution you might not actually technically
- or legally - actually 'own' the intellectual of your publications
anyway. Look closely at your respective University's policy on IPR and
you might well find that anything you produce, whether lecture slides,
papers or even books - whilst employed by your institution belongs to
them rather than you. Of course, this raises an interesting question as
to whether individuals working under such regimes have any legal
authority to sign the copyright away to commercial publishers. As such,
whether we self-publish, publish with open-access journals or publish
through the 'conventional' channels is perhaps a decision that should be
taken away from us automatons and left to our employers...
Dr. Carl J. Griffin,
Lecturer in Human Geography,
Queen's University, Belfast
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