My understanding is that normally students retain ownership, unless there are exceptions. Here's two examples, of IPR policies relating to student work one from LSE and the other from King's.

LSE IPR policy (Intranet access only)
"Student Work
16. Students will normally own IPR in the Work which they produce. Examples where this is not the case include:
16.1. Copyright of Work, the Design Rights of a Product or Patent of an Invention that is produced by a student in the course of his/her employment at the School;
16.2. A student transferring any or all of his/her IPR to a third party, such as an external sponsor or work placement body;
16.3. A student contributing to a project, the IPR to which are owned by a member of staff, the School or other third party;
16.4. The Copyright of a PhD theses, which since October 2007 has been jointly owned by the student (or Author) and the School.

King's College policy.
"(a) The ownership of IP created by a student who is not an employee of the College, is with the student. The College does not automatically own the 
IP created by its students in the normal course of their studies. 
(b) However, there are circumstances where the College will require a student to assign their IP to the College before, during or after the course of 
studies"
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/college/policyzone/assets/files/students/Code_of_Practice_for_Intellectual_Property_Commercial_Exploitation_and_Financial_Benefit.pdf

Thanks,

Laurence Horton
Data Librarian
The London School of Economics and Political Science
10 Portugal Street
London
WC2A 2HD

T: 020 7955 6072
E: [log in to unmask]




-----Original Message-----
From: Research Data Management discussion list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sebastian Rahtz
Sent: 06 January 2015 11:01
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Ownership of data collected by postgrads

> On 6 Jan 2015, at 10:32, Martin Donnelly <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Here's an excerpt from a message posted by Peter Murray-Rust to the Open Science list last year, quoting Charles Oppenheim...
> 
> "If a STUDENT has created the data as part of a project and they are self-funded, or receive a grant, then the student owns the rights to the data. If anyone else wants to use the data, they must get permission from the student. The student cannot be forced to agree. (Any attempt to REQUIRE the student to assign or license rights would be invalid in law; get the student to voluntarily agree).

I really don't see how this can be true. Maybe it depends on the jurisdiction? Charles Oppenheim is suggesting a layman's interpretation of UK law which may be wishful thinking.

To quote again our Statutes:

"Council may make regulations:

(1) defining the classes of persons or naming individuals to whom section 5 (1) (c) of this statute shall apply;

(2) requiring student members and such other persons as may be specified in regulations to sign any documents necessary in order to give effect to the claim made by the University in this Part and to waive any rights in respect of the subject-matter of the claim which may be conferred on them by Chapter IV of Part 1 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988; ..."

It seems unlikely that the University of Oxford would enshrine something in its statutes which was illegal.

Students enter into a contract with the university, and may well sign away their rights. No, they can't be forced to, but equally the university is not forced to recognise them as a student. A free-standing "student" can do what they like, of course, but in exchange for being associated with the institution, they would be expected to follow its rules.
--
Sebastian Rahtz      
Chief Data Architect
University of Oxford IT Services
13 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 6NN. Phone +44 1865 283431

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