Online Courseware Intellectual Property

UNT encourages the development and use of high-quality online courseware, and safeguards the rights of authors and the University as detailed in UNT Policy 06.032 Online Courseware Intellectual Property. There are three categories of ownership and licensure for online courseware created at the University, based on the amount of support provided by UNT for developing those materials. 

• License Agreement Category A — Jointly Held. The work resulted from a combination of the author's efforts and University-provided resources, and the author shares the intellectual property with the University. Online courseware created by authors may include content produced by other individuals as works for hire or paid for by the University. The resulting work will be jointly owned by the author and the University based on the respective contributions. The author and the University each maintain a non-exclusive educational and commercial license. If licensed for commercial purposes either by the author or the University, the author and the University will split any royalty income evenly.
   
• License Agreement Category B — University Held. An author is assigned to develop online courseware for the University as a work made for hire. The University provided the resources for the work which was carried out as a part of the author’s assigned time and duties. The University owns the intellectual property and owns exclusive educational and commercial licenses, unless otherwise negotiated.
   
• License Agreement Category C — Use of Digital Publisher Content in an Online Course in lieu of an IP agreement. To be used in the instance that the course author or subsequent instructors of record will utilize materials that are authored by an academic publisher for online use. If the author has adopted a textbook or electronic learning bundle from a publisher, and intends to use pre-authored content from this publisher including, but not limited to lecture slides, videos, electronic textbooks, assignments, assessments or proprietary third-party learning/assessment tools that exceed 10% percent of the original material in the course, the author has elected to forfeit any intellectual property ownership of their course and the materials therein.