Although total college enrollments are rising at the rate of 1–2% annually, distance education enrollments are rising at a rate of 30% per year. Id. Other studies find that the number of post secondary schools offering distance learning classes is up one-third from just one year ago. Id.

A. Revenue and Control: Two Sides of the Coin
The ownership question surrounding online courses has become important for primarily two reasons: revenue and control. Revenue issues play a key role because administrators and faculty believe that there is the possibility for significant financial gain through offering online courses, degree programs, and certificates and each group has interests in the financial gains. Issues of control play a significant part in policy discussions because the faculty consider control issues to be related to issues of ensuring quality and protecting their academic freedom whereas administrators mention the institution's significant investment in the final product, an investment that they believe entitles them to have control over the content also.

B. Revenue
As stated above, online education is by far the fastest growing segment of higher education. Online courses not only provide revenue because of the numbers of students served — online courses also provide other efficiencies as well. These efficiencies include: 1) reaching a new student population currently untapped, 2) offering a single course in multiple sections without the need for classroom space, 3) licensing the course externally and receiving royalties; 4) increasing the number of enrollments in a single course, and 5) combining a few online courses in a novel manner to create a certificate that allows students to have a "product" without having to pursue and entire degree. Thus, the online course represents a potentially profitable return on the resources invested to develop and deliver it. The potential revenue stream that online courses have is important to academic institutions that are constantly seeking new avenues to support the academic enterprise. The online course has the potential to keep institutional costs constant while exploiting the institution's intellectual property in novel ways and as a result, it is an important new product for the higher education industry. From the perspective of institutions doing significant delivery of online courses, the potential profit is real and ownership plays a critical role in determining the extent to which the institution and its faculty benefit from the development and delivery of online courses.

Kimberly B. Kelley, Ph.D.
University of Maryland University College

Executive Director, Center for Intellectual Property,
Assistant Vice President, Information and Library Services

Kimberly M. Bonner, Esq.
University of Maryland University College

Director, Center for Intellectual Property

Recent position papers on courseware ownership demonstrate the differences of opinion. For example, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) developed a statement on copyright ownership in which they assert that the traditional academic exception "should ordinarily apply to the development of courseware for use in programs of distance education." See (http://www.aaup.org/
statements/Redbook/Spccopyr.htm). In contrast, the Association of American Universities (AAU) states "the university.own[s] the intellectual property that is created at the university by faculty [and] research staff.with substantial aid of its facilities or its financial support." See (http://www.aau.edu/reports/IPReport.html). With such conflicting positions, the policy formulation process has not been easy.

I. The Distance Education Dilemma
Distance education, as it is used in this article, is defined as a "planned teaching and learning experience that uses a wide spectrum of technologies to reach learners at a distance and is designed to encourage learner interaction and certification of learning." See University of Wisconsin-Extension, Continuing Education Extension. Distance education is an area of significant growth for higher education. For example, a 1995 Department of Education study found that more than 70% of higher education institutions reported that they planned to start offering, or increasing, courses using online or other computer-based technologies in the next-three years [1].

Moreover, according to estimates made by Massachusetts based International Data Corporation, 2.2 million students will take classes online in 2002, up from 700,000 in 1998. See Marketing News, July 31, 2000.