For staff working in publicly-funded educational institutions, presumably terms and conditions of employment have an impact on enabling/disabling support for open educational resources (and other aspects of open education, like open source coding).
I am aware of a quite restrictive example (for support staff, not specifically educators) which refers to works created “whether or not in the course of your employment” being “the absolute property of the College”. This would seemingly prevent private contributions to the world of OER for those staff.
Even assuming that the institution’s terms followed the standard practice for copyright creation of resources, there may be scope for expressing a preference that the licence these would be made available under would be an open, rather than a commercial one.
Are there any model terms and conditions of employment which demonstrate how OER can be positively supported (in the UK and beyond)?
Tavis Reddick
Enterprise Systems Support Technologist
ICT Services
Stenton Campus, Glenrothes
Fife College
01592 223313
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