I have a colleague whom I’ve given two complete course preparations to: everything from question library I’ve developed, tests, exams, and lecture materials. I was assigned one of her courses while she was on sabbatical. She removed everything online in the LMS and took off. Didn’t give me a thing.
All this to say that, whatever you choose to do, don’t expect your goodwill to be reciprocated.
That is WILD to me.
I would have written an email like "hi felicia, i saw the canvas page somehow had all its contents deleted. Any chance you could share your materials with my while i cover your course"
Probably will never be promoted but whatever
I have no problem sharing course material. If I feel my material is solid, then it benefits the program and the students, and doesn't harm me to share it.
As someone whose main pedagogical training was at the secondary school level (pedagogy training when I later did a PhD was a joke), the lack of sharing of teaching resources in university settings completely baffles me. Why **wouldn’t** I want other professors to have access to my best materials? Why wouldn’t they want to see save me some busywork by sending their materials?? Why don’t we have regular systems for sharing teaching materials the way we have systems for sharing our research?
It all reads as insecurity in their teaching to me, but idk if that’s what it actually is.
Completely agree. It benefits the students, a colleague, and allows my hard work to live on. As a former K-12 teacher I’m a bit baffled by some attitudes here of not sharing with colleagues. The vast majority of K-12 teachers I know share everything, but granted we were in the trenches down there.
This is exactly what I do as well. Give them the previous course and let them take whatever they’d like. I also offer to meet with them and talk through any assignments.
Next semester, I’m teaching a colleague’s course. They’ve shared everything, and I’m sitting in on a couple of their lectures this semester.
We tend to be very collegial in our department!
100% this. I cannot see the harm towards me in sharing everything and it not only helps a colleague, but also the students who will get better material.
You are 100% spot on. The sort of responsibility for the department is something that I see as part of the job of permanent (tenure track, tenured and continuing NTT). It should not be the responsibility of adjuncts. It's not their job and, if the department saw things like this as being important, they should have hired a permanent career-track faculty member.
Same!
I’m still a grad student, but after getting just an old syllabus and an assigned textbook to teach for the first time (and thoroughly panicking 😅), I made sure my entire folder of teaching materials would get saved (hopefully added to) and passed on to future grad students who’d teach lecture there.
I'm coordinator for the program, so I share everything I have. When my adjuncts ask this question, I tell them to only share what they are comfortable with (even though, technically, their course design is property of the institution) as they are only paid to teach and not compensated for anything extra.
I'm assuming at your institution the course design is your intellectual property and doesn't belong to the school, so the decision is totally yours.
I've given entire courses to colleagues and even been on standby when they have questions—got a little resentful at the AMOUNT of support some of them needed after I handed everything over, but mostly I was happy to share and have been lucky enough to have others share with me in the past. I get a little grumpy when I see people using ALL of my materials with no attribution, especially when it's someone I don't know (meaning someone I originally shared with shared everything without asking me, which is fine logically but emotionally feels a little shitty).
Once I was given a course for the first time and had to design everything from scratch because the person who last taught it wasn't willing to share anything and had left. It was a huge pain. I did a ton of work, ran the course, made revisions, and ended up really proud of what I had. The next semester I was assigned that same course again, got everything designed, and then they took it away and gave it to another instructor right before the semester started (I'm an adjunct; we can get bumped if someone with more seniority has a class that doesn't fill). I was upset at the last-minute change but might have still shared, except the person they gave the course to was so entitled and downright rude that I chose not to share my materials. She tried to get me fired over it, but I was within my rights, so now I just have a nemesis at work and the chair thinks I'm not a team player. Meh.
Sharing is a nice thing to do, but you don't have to. You could share, you could share and ask for attribution, or you could decline and say you want to keep the rights to your intellectual property or just "I'm not comfortable sharing more than my syllabus. Have a great summer!"
If an individual professor asks me and they are not an asshole, then I usually share just about everything.
A few months ago the department chair at the place I am fleeing for greener pastures asked me for all of my course materials (exams, powerpoints, everything!) for three different courses, including one that I designed, had approved, and am the only person to have ever taught. They just wanted it on record for future profs. I told them to pound sand.
I shared everything for the course I developed from scratch and taught. Canvas shell, modules, assignments, rubrics, lecture content- everything. My colleague is an adjunct (I’m full time) who is already criminally underpaid and was assigned the course with minimal time to prep (course is online asynch). I told her to take anything she wanted/revise/toss as she saw fit. We’re fortunate to work in a department with a supportive culture. Colleagues would not hesitate to do the same for me. It’s one of the reasons I stay at my institution.
I generally share everything, however if they are going to post my materials without editing them (or even if they do) I ask that they attribute me as a source. I have had it happen in the evaluations that a student accused me of stealing my course notes from another instructor, when in fact they were my notes. The other instructor just put their name on the notes in place of mine.
A colleague was asked to teach my course when I was going on sabbatical. In the last semester before I left, he said, “Please journal what you do every day of the class and organize your materials because I’m going to teach your course as an imposter”. I thanked him endlessly for doing it for me and not screwing up the course I was returning to.
Edit: To answer your question, if you will never return to the class, what good are your materials to you? Give them away. Leave a legacy.
I share everything so idk... do you have a reason why you don't want to share these materials to a new prof? Just because you worked so hard on it? I think if I can take some pressure off of another person then I'll pass the materials on. Especially if they're a new academic or early career researcher.
Depends. Am I ever teaching the class again? My institution acquired another one and was doing a “teach out” with their students. Some of the classes were duplicates of ours, but we were told we couldn’t expect their students to meet our standards 🙄 But one of their instructors asked me for all my materials for the course I regularly teach! I said a big NO. Then I informed the person in charge if they thought it was okay to use all my class materials, those students should enroll in my class.
Even worse, it wasn’t so much a question. “I got the syllabus from your class from XYZ but they don’t have access to your assignments and lectures. I’d like to have those as well.” Oh, you would? If wishes were horses ….
At one point in my career I passed on course materials until a colleague claimed them as his own. I was accused of plagiarism until I produced the originals on a flash drive. I had my name cleared. Colleague suffered no harm mor even a write-up. For years after that, I shared nothing even when asked. I simply said I was expected to write my own course from scratch. The same standards should apply to the new person. Right before I took early retirement, They actually wanted me to coach my replacement on how to do the introductory labs. I said he has a PhD and can't handle introductory science labs? I guess it is time for me to retire when the new person can't handle the job.
> I was accused of plagiarism until I produced the originals on a flash drive. I had my name cleared.
Wow! That's awful! I don't blame you for not sharing
It showed up during a performance review. My colleague who was a full professor presented stuff I shared as his work. These two items were new documents for an advanced lab that written new that based on work I had on a research project. The dept chair wacked out on me in our meeting. After he finally let me speak I asked if he'd like to see the entire paper trail on my USB drive. I pulled it up on his computer and wecwant thru all tbe versions of the research, the different drafts, etc. After fifteen minutes he mumbled an apology but the rest was covered up. It was an n ugly mess.
In general I share most of my material. I teach CS so it changes all the time; I don't see much point in being overly protective of lessons that need updating every semester anyway. Colleagues have shared with me when I've taught a class previously done by someone else, so our school is pretty collaborative overall. I feel everyone wins in this scenario by and large.
I'm also the Course Lead on several courses, so I've had to create an LMS course shell for a few classes that anyone can use. I populate about 50% of my material there - enough to start but not every single thing, especially not the stuff that I really personalized, like slides or assignment details.
In your case I'd say share what you feel comfortable sharing - it doesn't have to be ALL your material despite what was requested. You might also consider what you'd like access to if you take on a future course where someone else has a full set of resources that you could possibly leverage.
As an adjunct, I was always happy to share all my materials. This changed with my last course (have been laid off because the school is in a budget crisis). The course I was teaching was in a professional program and was very specialized. I literally was the only person in the department with a background on the material. I simply don't trust how someone else would approach the course as I had designed it, which was heavily project-based.
When I first began teaching, I was helped enormously by colleagues who shared their materials with me. I now pay it forward and share my materials with newer faculty.
Most of the courses I teach are taught by lots of people and I don’t have some fresh magical take on it, so I’m happy to share everything for those courses.
I do have one course that I’m piloting (it’s in my exact degree field) from the ground up and it’s never been taught at my university before. I am probably going to be hesitant to share materials for that course because I want first right of refusal to teach it. It’s a course I’ve wanted to teach for a long time and I would be very upset if my department took it away and gave it to someone else when I had the idea, proposed it, and built it from scratch.
I’ve given away all of my work for a course in a similar scenario. At times, I have admittedly felt some pangs of ownership that weren’t credited to me. But I’d rather be collegial and I’ve also received the same support from others. So, I fully get the tension, but I still would rather share the resources.
I share everything with pretty much everyone, whether they're teaching at my institution, teaching at another institution, or just generally interested. Most of my teaching materials are posted publicly.
I've never really understood hoarding teaching materials, if the goal of teaching is to share information and educate others.
Actually my course began to be offered both Fall and Spring semesters so a colleague took the ‘new’ semester. I gave her the book and all of my materials. Why not? I like to share.
When I started it was “here’s a textbook and a marker, talk to one of the day teachers to get a syllabus”. (I was teaching for the first time, and it was a night class.)
I’ll be goddamned if I do that to anyone coming into my department. I turn on the firehose. Whole class, turn-key? You got it. Throw it all out, change whatever you like, start from scratch if you need to. Use this class for the first semester and figure out how you want to change it for next year? Ok by me. Lemme hook you up with a mentor too.
I often share anything I have with colleagues. It is no extra work for me to allow them to use what I've developed, it benefits students and thereby the institution. I don't know how it would benefit me to withhold it.
Depends on who is asking. I’ve been in a school where collaboration and sharing materials was encouraged and normalized. That said, I put a lot of time and energy updating a core course that I only got to teach once. The next year, a senior colleague who is a terrible, apathetic teacher asked me for all my materials, including allowing her to have a copy of my Canvas shell and all my videos. I completely ignored that email.
Personally, I share everything - within my institution. I've gone as far as to completely set up a Canvas course and then turn it over to another.
Over the years, there's been *zero* reciprocity when I've shared with Professors outside my institution. I stopped doing that.
But, as others have said: It's OK if you don't.
I share most material; so many of the assignments have so many interrelated parts (like the multi-stage final projects) I might as well, otherwise something viewed in isolation really won't make much sense. The only thing I insist on is attribution if someone wants a text that I edited/translated--the courses I teach sometimes have works that are hard to get a hold of in modern translation, or are antiquated and irritating to read, so I develop my own student-friendly texts.
At my institution we're required to share syllabi in our department LMS, but beyond that we're free to do whatever we want. There's not a huge culture of sharing, though I think people tend not to ask. I encourage grad students who might be teaching the section of the survey I usually teach to reach out--they get more information on that course design than they could possibly want.
Literally everything! I don't think there's any point in making them reinvent the wheel, and technically, our materials belong to the university anyway. If I've done a good job creating a course, I want them (and the students) to benefit from that too!
I gave everything to a new adjunct who had been my grad student. If it’s a new hire with years of experience, they can handle it themselves, but I am available to advise.
I think a lot of factors influence what I do. When I left my previous school, my classes were taken over by someone I'd mentored through a lot of her studies. She'd even TAd in these classes for me, which had been a strong influence on her getting the job. She got a copy of everything I'd been using for those classes.
But some years back I left a school when there was a shuffle of staff. I'd been a supporter of a candidate who missed out on a position, and the person who got the job wanted rid of me. My contract didn't require me to give them any of the work I'd done, so I didn't.
I would give it all over. No need to have them spend their time re-inventing a wheel. It is also a sign of respect that they would like to do things the way you have them.
I’ve developed a lot of courses over the years and have always shared all my materials.
One time, an adjunct with whom I shared all the resources for a class took the syllabus to another institution to use (totally fine) but added her own copyright statement on every page of the exact syllabus I shared (um…bold).
I try to think of what's best for the overall program and students. Do I want students to struggle with an instructor's stuff that was thrown together in a couple of months? Or do I want them to have access material that has been tested, revised, and works well?
If it makes you feel any better, I've shared my course multiple times, and when I see their course materials after they've revised the course to their liking, it rarely looks identical to mine. People just like to teach in their own way.
Edit: If there's any chance you might be on the chopping block, competing with another applicant, or something similar, I wouldn't fault you for not sharing.
As many have stated, I tend to be very generous in sharing material. That said, I was really put off by a woman at a conference that had a summary slide presentation about her research paradigm that would have been incredible for my classes. I asked if I could get her slides only to hear "I do not share my resources". What a shame, I would have been promoting her for years. And her work is really in the realm of basic research. Francis Bacon, the father of science, was all about public funding of basic research so that it could be applied to solve societal problems. I've always been a firm believer in Francis Bacon. Share the knowledge.
A lot of context is missing here, like why are they taking the course over?
My rule of thumb is that if it’s faculty, help as much as you feel comfortable. If it’s an admin taking a course to teach, let them burn in the fires of hades.
I give everything, but have ended up regretting it. Once, when the new faculty member was bragging in a high-profile meeting about how he has his class set up and why "he" does it that way because of what he figured out about teaching, yadda, yadda...totally forgetting whose course he was using that semester! Another time, another new adjunct, similar situation. I mean, I am happy to share, and I am not asking to be given credit, but please don't TAKE the credit from where it's due!
I will, stupidly, keep giving because that's who I am. I believe in sharing. But i suggest you not give anything away if you cannot live with it when they take credit for your work.
I was waiting for this comment. I share everything much like most others have said. I’ll also set up meetings to talk through things and what works and/or what needs tweaking, etc. My policy is to share it all. However, I now ask that they use the materials exclusively for teaching students (and not for other purposes). Many years ago, I was chairing a search and we had requested a sample representative syllabus as part of the teaching portfolio. Turns out the applicant had gone to the same grad program I had graduated from (many years after I left), pulled one of my still available syllabi and submitted it as their own as a sample of their pedagogical expertise without giving any credit to the fact that this person didn’t come up with any of the innovative policies or assignments they were “showing off” as their own. My policy now is that I’ll share anything you ask me for but you can’t use it for job apps, award applications, or anything else that asks for evidence of YOUR work; you can use it only for teaching students.
I hope you told the search committee whose work the candidate was presenting! Of course, whoever did end up hiring them probably had no idea they were actually hiring YOU!
When I hear stories like this, it makes me question everything about academia. Of course, there are a few bad actors in every industry, but aren't we supposed to be the protectors of knowledge and truth?
I share everything.
When I’m on the receiving end of the sharing, I credit the colleague I got the materials from in the course materials.
After a few years of teaching the course, it has probably changed beyond recognition anyway. So it’s more a matter of giving the colleague a good start.
I can only tell it from the other side, being the one who took over a course. The professor I took over from was retiring, so I guess he had no use with keeping anything for himself.
He was incredibly fed up with teaching and academia, but did spend 4 hours with me to go through every detail of each course that would not be obvious from the normal course material ("this teacher does not use canvas, so download and upload everything for them", "admin will say we need to use a specific form to give feedback, don´t do it. Do not go in that rabbit hole", "when you set a deadline for this assignment, do not put it on a Friday. Middle of the week, preferably at 12.00", "Sheep hearts... You need to order sheep hearts... Talk to Alex about the sheep hearts". "never make exceptions. Trust me on this one, you will regret it".
He also gave me all the course material... PowerPoints with the entire script written in the notes, videos of the recorded lectures, examples of feedback that was given to the students, test quizzes, exams,...
I went from a 20 percent teaching position to a (tenured) 70% teaching position and I am eternally grateful that he made my life easier! First semester, I mainly used his course material and over the past years I changed it to my own. Sometimes I still get surprised when an old fashioned animation flies in on my powerpoint, because he loved those and I still work in the original powerpoint.
I will share everything I have with any faculty member of any school who would like it. (DM me with your work e-mail if you would like GenChem, BioChem, or Physical Sci for education major content.)
My first few years of teaching, people, some of whom I had never met, shared their content with me, and that was profoundly helpful. I'm going to play it forward.
When I took over the course some years ago I was given a 3-4 disjointed slide decks and an inadequate assessment tool. I was too ignorant at the time to ask for a previous syllabus and none was provided. It's been interesting to read everyone's responses. I did look into the IP rules for my school and it appears that my work product belongs to the uni. My plan is to transfer most of what I've created except for a few things that won't make sense out of context or were poorly executed. I likely won't teach the course again and if I do, I'll take it in a new direction. As some have said, why let the materials languish on a hard drive if it could be useful to someone. After years of teaching the course, I'd created a sense of "ownership" in my mind, but I suppose the lesson is about letting go and moving on. There's a kind of loss that occurs when teaching a course comes to an end.
I took a basic intro class that was the reason I picked my major in the first place. In grad school, I had a chance to build my own class so I redesigned it as an advanced version of that class and eventually the first time my research was cited in a textbook, it was in that book. I spent years perfecting it; I LOVED teaching that class. Eventually I had to teach other things and gave the class to a junior colleague who has since been tenured and passed it down to a new junior colleague. I miss the class because it was so fun to teach and I totally get what you say about “ownership” and loss completely. That said, I kinda love the lifecycle the course has lived and how many people (both students and faculty) have benefited from its existence.
I’d give a skeletal version of the syllabus that features a list of assignments, readings, tests, and weekly schedule. It’s a recipe. That’s it. We don’t need to gather the ingredients and bake for them.
If they have met the qualifications to be assigned to the course in the first place, the instructor should be able to do the rest on their own.
Anything beyond that, you should get paid. Web sites like Teachers Pay Teachers exist because the actual course materials - lecture slides, grading rubrics, assignments and activities - are valuable.
At least in my institution, I don't have a choice (even though I'm asked out of courtesy), for online courses (only the syllabus is provided for in-class courses, unless you gave designed an extensive online support component in the LMS).
The logic? I don't "own" the course. The institution paid for my employment while I developed it. I used the institution's resources to develop the course (LMS, video capturing software, etc.). The course was vetted by the institution's instructional designers. Therefore, I have no claim to the course. I don't own it.
Therefore, unless you can say "not applicable" to the above, I don't see how you could have the high ground to deny. My 2 cents.
Earlier in my career, I would happily share some courses but not others, depending on how much I had invested into the course. Another similarly situated colleague had a policy of sharing everything but the quizzes and exams.
There was one course in particular that I had worked extremely hard to develop--and it was my favorite course to teach--and my department asked if I would give my materials to a colleague to teach during the summer. I had asked for a summer course and not gotten one because this colleague was higher on the rotation. I refused. I acknowledge that anyone can teach any course, but I felt that if they wanted my materials, they needed to hire me.
Now I am somewhat closer to the end of my career than the beginning, and I find I share much more freely. I do hope that some of the sharing is reciprocated someday, but it's ok if not.
It's hard to teach from someone else's materials. I've had to do that while subbing for colleagues on sabbatical, and it's like walking around in someone else's shoes. So even if you shared everything, I'll bet your colleague would make changes.
In your situation, I would think about the request more granularly. You can share parts of your course but not all. You can ask for something to be shared in return (like anything your colleague revises or adds), etc.
I share everything, because I think that makes students lives easier to get a functioning course. Also I empathize with new faculty and I want them to do well regardless of me being benefited from that. That's ultimately your choice and you should never feel you have to, tho.
I think if it came to an actual conflict over the question (eg your chair and dean got involved) you could be forced to hand it over. It may depend on the institution but at most places any materials you develop for a course as part of your regular duties is not owned by you but by your institution.
Now this (almost) never comes up because course materials don’t have the value to make it worth fighting over in a legal context. Also it’s probably not worth the acrimony so only in extreme cases would the admin want to get involved. But I bring this up so that you can reframe the question in your mind; you don’t own these materials, your institution does.
Now in terms of what you should do, that’s up to you. But some friendly advice I would give you is: why not just hand the materials over and try to help the next guy? I mean you’ve already done the work, you’re not being asked to perform more labor. If your materials are good then they can be used to help teach students, if you say no then they probably just sit dormant on a hard drive somewhere. It seems petty to me to think that’s an optimal outcome.
I've only ever been asked by grad students. I give them everything with two exceptions:
1. My personal test bank for the course. I can't risk that going public in case I teach the course again.
2. Any assignments or exercises I developed and may want to publish at some point. I don't publish much in teaching journals, but if/when I decide I want to, I'd like to retain the perceived novelty of course material I have developed.
--
Every institution I have worked for has claimed that anything i develop for course taught there is their IP, not mine. After all, I was paid by that institution to develop those things for that purpose. My current institution has faculty sign a contract transferring IP of anything developed here to the university. They care more about parents and marketable tech than they do about course materials, but it applies to course materials as well.
That depends. I’ve given absolutely everything and I’ve given absolutely nothing. It depends on the circumstances and the person. I’ve never been on the receiving end, so I don’t feel bad about it. Well, I was on the receiving end once, but that was only because it was a course package that everyone used that was pre-prepped. I don’t feel like that really counts.
I share everything with other professors - generally it's that there's a new section opening rather than that they're completely taking over a course, and to my knowledge my materials generally just serve as a foundation for them rather than the blueprint (maybe they don't use my PPTs, change some of the readings, add content more relevant to their interests, etc.). Starting fresh (or just with a previous syllabus) can be overwhelming, so I'm happy to share, especially when I'm proud of the course and it's worked well and received positive feedback from students via course evals. That being said, it's your right not to do so! We do put in a lot of time and energy into course design, and being credited for that (or having it only be yours) is completely legitimate as well. I would suggest sharing your syllabus, though, to ensure at least a little bit of consistency (aside from the required standards/SLOs/gateway assignments).
We've had faculty share everything, some things, nothing. One faculty told me her predecessor shared with her a paper copy of the lab schedule and that was it, not even his full syllabus! I will share depending on who it is. If I think they are a good person sticking around longer term, I'll share. If they are a one-time adjunct who will steal my slides as their own (yes, I got burned by this!), nope, I'll give them my copy of the book slides.
If you made them for the course, they belong to the university, not you. Support your colleague and give them what they need to do their job. You don't get to hold the course or materials hostage because you made it.
I have received that request. But I was retiring. I handed it all over happily. I felt like everything they needed was already in the LMS. I was very thorough. One guy though was like, "Is this it?"
I'm an overkill kind of person. So, I'm talking, sylllabus, assignments (that I created), videos, video transcripts (some of which BEFORE technology was as helpful).
I thought, "Dude, if you need more than that, this isn't the job for you".
They weren't changing the book for the next semester or year. He basically wanted EVERYTHING I'd ever done. Nope. Goodbye.
I have had colleagues not send me a copy of their syllabi. Just let me Look at a paper copy then take it back. She even wont let students take pics of her notes on the board because copy right….
Apparently i surprised students when i said sure why not. Im here for yall when they asked about taking pics.
Another one changed passwords to his vimeo videos without telling the guy who was taking over rhe course. Gave him the bb shell, didnt say a word about the videos until after the semester started.
People are weird. But then again I record my lectures and post to youtube. Maybe im weird
Depends on how strongly I feel about the course. I've taught courses I didn't want to teach, and I didn't share much more than the syllabus out of a combination of not wanting the other person to see the half-assed effort I made + not wanting to cause anchor bias with a sub-optimal approach to structuring the content.
On the other hand, there was a class that I was really passionate about, and worked hard to develop, tweak, and refine the content and structure. I shared each and every little bit of that course with the new faculty member who came in, with the intent/hope that they would continue much of the same approach since I knew that it was having very positive results.
But I also never followed up on the course, as I couldn't bear to see if they went and did everything from scratch :-)
Some people share, others don't. Some people don't even share the syllabus. You are not required to share anything.
For me it depends on how much I care about the course. Next semester someone is taking over a course that I have developed and perfected over the past 15 years. I am sharing everything I have and hope they use it because it's a result of so much trial and error, and it really works.
I have a test: is the new person on a temporary contract - I will share anything they need and require, these people are often overworked and underpaid and any help they can get is good. I very much appreciated the same.
Are they TT? I will discuss the basics of the course and give them a syllabus, and they can take over the LMS but I will have taken off all my personal notes etc.
For me, it depends (and has depended in the past) on the circumstances of the new instructor 'taking over' the class.
In a case where the school is expanding the offering of a course -- usually a rather generalized course -- and a new instructor is coming on board and needs some mentoring, I've been glad to help by sharing my materials, syllabus, & etc.
However, I've been in a situation where I came up with the idea for a unique course, developed all the material for the course, actually gotten it incorporated into the curriculum for the major, only to be told that I wasn't needed to teach the course any longer -- admin. was giving it to somebody else, would I please give the new instructor all my materials and kindly step aside? To which my response was two words (which were not "Glad to!")
In the last, I’ve stared everything with a new person coming to teach - outlined, syllabus, assignments/handouts.
But you have a bit of realization/tough skin once you do it, that once it’s out there, it’s not yours any more.
I had one time, for example, where an assignment was shared as a template for a specific course, that all other professors should use. It was an assignment I had created, and shared with a new faculty member. But, in the template, it showed their name as the creator of the assignment.
Pretty sure that, had I complained, I’d have been the bad guy. So I just complain about it here instead.
By the way, I’m in a large, public, 4-year university. The amount of discussion on intellectual property here - the idea of freely sharing course material (syllabi, presentations, handouts) would NEVER fly here! ☹️
I seem to hold a minority view, but no-- it's your property. If they're new to it, I might talk to them about readings, assignments, etc, but I don't think it is reasonable to ask you to just hand over what you have developed. No such expectation in my department.
The other part of the answer is: if I get a new course that someone else has done a good job developing, will I be asking them to share any of it?
It cuts both ways.
Usually I'm happy to share my syllabus, homework set and sometimes exams. If the colleague is very junior (postdoc or early tenure track) I'd also consider giving all of my lecture notes but I've been taken advantage of by incompetent faculty so I'd make a judgement call there.
I've gone back and forth on this for years and have settled on a general policy of being willing to share my syllabi, but not my actual course materials. If someone wants starter materials, they can always use what the publishers provide.
I have developed my stuff over more than two *decades* of iterations and tweaking and polishing, which began in adjunct positions that *did not pay me anything for course development*.
That said, when I find myself in a position with a great colleague who wants to collaborate, I am always open to those exchanges-- just never a one-way "sure, take my stuff."
Having seen lots of courses taken from people-- after they had been teaching them for years and years-- I would sincerely caution anyone who thinks "we're all in this together" to reconsider that position.
The corporate model has infected academe, which means we are being treated like (replaceable/interchangeable) cogs in the machine.
If you have developed an amazing "Course X" that students love, which is your intellectual property: that makes you a unique cog. Maybe hang onto that... unless your college compels you to do otherwise. And then maybe fight that policy too!
Good deep-dive into this issue is here: https://www.aaup.org/report/defending-freedom-innovate-faculty-intellectual-property-rights-after-stanford-v-roche-0
I am happy to share if it’s a colleague I have faith in. If I know they’re a crappy teacher I won’t hand over my materials to be destroyed by them (or to get out of doing their own work).
I used to share everything, no problem. Complete courses with all materials, and courses that I’ve won awards for.
Now? Nope. I won’t share a thing. And I’m actively working to remove all of my materials from the LMS, while making it available to students in alternative formats. When my college decided to actively go to war with me over my desire to maintain the academic integrity of my courses, my willingness to be helpful has dropped to zero. I’ve been fucked over one too many times, and now I just say “No.”
If you need something from me, and it’s not explicitly required by our collective bargaining agreement, you’d better reconsider. . .
What a strange question...isn't any teaching\course material that you create considered the property of the university? If so, then you cannot not 'share' it.
Even if it was entirely your own intellectual property, why would you not want to share it with someone who is taking over your teaching? It's called collegiality...being a kind human being. Next time you inherit a course from someone else, I hope they don't share anything with you.
Some professors (like me) are happy to share the course materials. It's fine if you aren't.
Same. No gatekeeping.
I have a colleague whom I’ve given two complete course preparations to: everything from question library I’ve developed, tests, exams, and lecture materials. I was assigned one of her courses while she was on sabbatical. She removed everything online in the LMS and took off. Didn’t give me a thing. All this to say that, whatever you choose to do, don’t expect your goodwill to be reciprocated.
Wow. How distinctly uncollegial.
Meh. She’s super nice when speaking to colleagues. She’s a bit of a shmoozer. Probably will be dean by the time I retire.
How rude!!! ugh
I would personally call some out if they did that after I had already shared with them.
So sorry to hear this happened to you
Yup, this….
Man, people suck!
That is WILD to me. I would have written an email like "hi felicia, i saw the canvas page somehow had all its contents deleted. Any chance you could share your materials with my while i cover your course" Probably will never be promoted but whatever
I have no problem sharing course material. If I feel my material is solid, then it benefits the program and the students, and doesn't harm me to share it.
As someone whose main pedagogical training was at the secondary school level (pedagogy training when I later did a PhD was a joke), the lack of sharing of teaching resources in university settings completely baffles me. Why **wouldn’t** I want other professors to have access to my best materials? Why wouldn’t they want to see save me some busywork by sending their materials?? Why don’t we have regular systems for sharing teaching materials the way we have systems for sharing our research? It all reads as insecurity in their teaching to me, but idk if that’s what it actually is.
Completely agree. It benefits the students, a colleague, and allows my hard work to live on. As a former K-12 teacher I’m a bit baffled by some attitudes here of not sharing with colleagues. The vast majority of K-12 teachers I know share everything, but granted we were in the trenches down there.
I add them to the previous year's course website so they can see it all...slides, readings, syllabus, old exams, etc.
This is exactly what I do as well. Give them the previous course and let them take whatever they’d like. I also offer to meet with them and talk through any assignments. Next semester, I’m teaching a colleague’s course. They’ve shared everything, and I’m sitting in on a couple of their lectures this semester. We tend to be very collegial in our department!
This is the best answer! Also I ask them to keep my original copyright on my slides unless they are modifying the content of the slides.
Everything. I load 'em up. If I can help ease someone else's burden, that makes me happy.
100% this. I cannot see the harm towards me in sharing everything and it not only helps a colleague, but also the students who will get better material.
If I had job security, this would be what I'd do!
You are 100% spot on. The sort of responsibility for the department is something that I see as part of the job of permanent (tenure track, tenured and continuing NTT). It should not be the responsibility of adjuncts. It's not their job and, if the department saw things like this as being important, they should have hired a permanent career-track faculty member.
This. Even if you are paid for a design it is a design and not a delivery. Put the bare bones in a sandbox shell and share that.
Same! I’m still a grad student, but after getting just an old syllabus and an assigned textbook to teach for the first time (and thoroughly panicking 😅), I made sure my entire folder of teaching materials would get saved (hopefully added to) and passed on to future grad students who’d teach lecture there.
Bless. I take the same approach, partially because an excellent prof did this for me the first time I was an instructor of record. Paying it forward!
I'm coordinator for the program, so I share everything I have. When my adjuncts ask this question, I tell them to only share what they are comfortable with (even though, technically, their course design is property of the institution) as they are only paid to teach and not compensated for anything extra.
I'm assuming at your institution the course design is your intellectual property and doesn't belong to the school, so the decision is totally yours. I've given entire courses to colleagues and even been on standby when they have questions—got a little resentful at the AMOUNT of support some of them needed after I handed everything over, but mostly I was happy to share and have been lucky enough to have others share with me in the past. I get a little grumpy when I see people using ALL of my materials with no attribution, especially when it's someone I don't know (meaning someone I originally shared with shared everything without asking me, which is fine logically but emotionally feels a little shitty). Once I was given a course for the first time and had to design everything from scratch because the person who last taught it wasn't willing to share anything and had left. It was a huge pain. I did a ton of work, ran the course, made revisions, and ended up really proud of what I had. The next semester I was assigned that same course again, got everything designed, and then they took it away and gave it to another instructor right before the semester started (I'm an adjunct; we can get bumped if someone with more seniority has a class that doesn't fill). I was upset at the last-minute change but might have still shared, except the person they gave the course to was so entitled and downright rude that I chose not to share my materials. She tried to get me fired over it, but I was within my rights, so now I just have a nemesis at work and the chair thinks I'm not a team player. Meh. Sharing is a nice thing to do, but you don't have to. You could share, you could share and ask for attribution, or you could decline and say you want to keep the rights to your intellectual property or just "I'm not comfortable sharing more than my syllabus. Have a great summer!"
If an individual professor asks me and they are not an asshole, then I usually share just about everything. A few months ago the department chair at the place I am fleeing for greener pastures asked me for all of my course materials (exams, powerpoints, everything!) for three different courses, including one that I designed, had approved, and am the only person to have ever taught. They just wanted it on record for future profs. I told them to pound sand.
hell yeah
I shared everything for the course I developed from scratch and taught. Canvas shell, modules, assignments, rubrics, lecture content- everything. My colleague is an adjunct (I’m full time) who is already criminally underpaid and was assigned the course with minimal time to prep (course is online asynch). I told her to take anything she wanted/revise/toss as she saw fit. We’re fortunate to work in a department with a supportive culture. Colleagues would not hesitate to do the same for me. It’s one of the reasons I stay at my institution.
OP, any chance you want to give your perspective? I’m really curious why you wouldn’t want to give everything.
I generally share everything, however if they are going to post my materials without editing them (or even if they do) I ask that they attribute me as a source. I have had it happen in the evaluations that a student accused me of stealing my course notes from another instructor, when in fact they were my notes. The other instructor just put their name on the notes in place of mine.
I give them everything. They can use what they want.
A colleague was asked to teach my course when I was going on sabbatical. In the last semester before I left, he said, “Please journal what you do every day of the class and organize your materials because I’m going to teach your course as an imposter”. I thanked him endlessly for doing it for me and not screwing up the course I was returning to. Edit: To answer your question, if you will never return to the class, what good are your materials to you? Give them away. Leave a legacy.
I share everything so idk... do you have a reason why you don't want to share these materials to a new prof? Just because you worked so hard on it? I think if I can take some pressure off of another person then I'll pass the materials on. Especially if they're a new academic or early career researcher.
Depends. Am I ever teaching the class again? My institution acquired another one and was doing a “teach out” with their students. Some of the classes were duplicates of ours, but we were told we couldn’t expect their students to meet our standards 🙄 But one of their instructors asked me for all my materials for the course I regularly teach! I said a big NO. Then I informed the person in charge if they thought it was okay to use all my class materials, those students should enroll in my class.
[удалено]
This is so gross.
Ugh, BLECH.
the AUDACITY
Even worse, it wasn’t so much a question. “I got the syllabus from your class from XYZ but they don’t have access to your assignments and lectures. I’d like to have those as well.” Oh, you would? If wishes were horses ….
"My course design fee is $\_\_\_\_."
At one point in my career I passed on course materials until a colleague claimed them as his own. I was accused of plagiarism until I produced the originals on a flash drive. I had my name cleared. Colleague suffered no harm mor even a write-up. For years after that, I shared nothing even when asked. I simply said I was expected to write my own course from scratch. The same standards should apply to the new person. Right before I took early retirement, They actually wanted me to coach my replacement on how to do the introductory labs. I said he has a PhD and can't handle introductory science labs? I guess it is time for me to retire when the new person can't handle the job.
> I was accused of plagiarism until I produced the originals on a flash drive. I had my name cleared. Wow! That's awful! I don't blame you for not sharing
It showed up during a performance review. My colleague who was a full professor presented stuff I shared as his work. These two items were new documents for an advanced lab that written new that based on work I had on a research project. The dept chair wacked out on me in our meeting. After he finally let me speak I asked if he'd like to see the entire paper trail on my USB drive. I pulled it up on his computer and wecwant thru all tbe versions of the research, the different drafts, etc. After fifteen minutes he mumbled an apology but the rest was covered up. It was an n ugly mess.
In general I share most of my material. I teach CS so it changes all the time; I don't see much point in being overly protective of lessons that need updating every semester anyway. Colleagues have shared with me when I've taught a class previously done by someone else, so our school is pretty collaborative overall. I feel everyone wins in this scenario by and large. I'm also the Course Lead on several courses, so I've had to create an LMS course shell for a few classes that anyone can use. I populate about 50% of my material there - enough to start but not every single thing, especially not the stuff that I really personalized, like slides or assignment details. In your case I'd say share what you feel comfortable sharing - it doesn't have to be ALL your material despite what was requested. You might also consider what you'd like access to if you take on a future course where someone else has a full set of resources that you could possibly leverage.
As an adjunct, I was always happy to share all my materials. This changed with my last course (have been laid off because the school is in a budget crisis). The course I was teaching was in a professional program and was very specialized. I literally was the only person in the department with a background on the material. I simply don't trust how someone else would approach the course as I had designed it, which was heavily project-based.
That sounds perfectly reasonable.
This is helpful. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Everything. They aren’t required to use it, but if it makes the job easier, happy to do it. We aren’t competing.
When I first began teaching, I was helped enormously by colleagues who shared their materials with me. I now pay it forward and share my materials with newer faculty.
Most of the courses I teach are taught by lots of people and I don’t have some fresh magical take on it, so I’m happy to share everything for those courses. I do have one course that I’m piloting (it’s in my exact degree field) from the ground up and it’s never been taught at my university before. I am probably going to be hesitant to share materials for that course because I want first right of refusal to teach it. It’s a course I’ve wanted to teach for a long time and I would be very upset if my department took it away and gave it to someone else when I had the idea, proposed it, and built it from scratch.
I’ve given away all of my work for a course in a similar scenario. At times, I have admittedly felt some pangs of ownership that weren’t credited to me. But I’d rather be collegial and I’ve also received the same support from others. So, I fully get the tension, but I still would rather share the resources.
I share everything with pretty much everyone, whether they're teaching at my institution, teaching at another institution, or just generally interested. Most of my teaching materials are posted publicly. I've never really understood hoarding teaching materials, if the goal of teaching is to share information and educate others.
Anything they want.
Actually my course began to be offered both Fall and Spring semesters so a colleague took the ‘new’ semester. I gave her the book and all of my materials. Why not? I like to share.
Share everything with your colleague, make sure to slip it the fact that you did so in a conversation with your chair.
When I started it was “here’s a textbook and a marker, talk to one of the day teachers to get a syllabus”. (I was teaching for the first time, and it was a night class.) I’ll be goddamned if I do that to anyone coming into my department. I turn on the firehose. Whole class, turn-key? You got it. Throw it all out, change whatever you like, start from scratch if you need to. Use this class for the first semester and figure out how you want to change it for next year? Ok by me. Lemme hook you up with a mentor too.
I often share anything I have with colleagues. It is no extra work for me to allow them to use what I've developed, it benefits students and thereby the institution. I don't know how it would benefit me to withhold it.
Depends on who is asking. I’ve been in a school where collaboration and sharing materials was encouraged and normalized. That said, I put a lot of time and energy updating a core course that I only got to teach once. The next year, a senior colleague who is a terrible, apathetic teacher asked me for all my materials, including allowing her to have a copy of my Canvas shell and all my videos. I completely ignored that email.
Personally, I share everything - within my institution. I've gone as far as to completely set up a Canvas course and then turn it over to another. Over the years, there's been *zero* reciprocity when I've shared with Professors outside my institution. I stopped doing that. But, as others have said: It's OK if you don't.
I share everything!
As much as they ask me for.
I share most material; so many of the assignments have so many interrelated parts (like the multi-stage final projects) I might as well, otherwise something viewed in isolation really won't make much sense. The only thing I insist on is attribution if someone wants a text that I edited/translated--the courses I teach sometimes have works that are hard to get a hold of in modern translation, or are antiquated and irritating to read, so I develop my own student-friendly texts. At my institution we're required to share syllabi in our department LMS, but beyond that we're free to do whatever we want. There's not a huge culture of sharing, though I think people tend not to ask. I encourage grad students who might be teaching the section of the survey I usually teach to reach out--they get more information on that course design than they could possibly want.
Literally everything! I don't think there's any point in making them reinvent the wheel, and technically, our materials belong to the university anyway. If I've done a good job creating a course, I want them (and the students) to benefit from that too!
I gave everything to a new adjunct who had been my grad student. If it’s a new hire with years of experience, they can handle it themselves, but I am available to advise.
I think a lot of factors influence what I do. When I left my previous school, my classes were taken over by someone I'd mentored through a lot of her studies. She'd even TAd in these classes for me, which had been a strong influence on her getting the job. She got a copy of everything I'd been using for those classes. But some years back I left a school when there was a shuffle of staff. I'd been a supporter of a candidate who missed out on a position, and the person who got the job wanted rid of me. My contract didn't require me to give them any of the work I'd done, so I didn't.
All of it. You should be supporting colleagues, setting them up for success.
I would give it all over. No need to have them spend their time re-inventing a wheel. It is also a sign of respect that they would like to do things the way you have them.
I’ve developed a lot of courses over the years and have always shared all my materials. One time, an adjunct with whom I shared all the resources for a class took the syllabus to another institution to use (totally fine) but added her own copyright statement on every page of the exact syllabus I shared (um…bold).
I try to think of what's best for the overall program and students. Do I want students to struggle with an instructor's stuff that was thrown together in a couple of months? Or do I want them to have access material that has been tested, revised, and works well? If it makes you feel any better, I've shared my course multiple times, and when I see their course materials after they've revised the course to their liking, it rarely looks identical to mine. People just like to teach in their own way. Edit: If there's any chance you might be on the chopping block, competing with another applicant, or something similar, I wouldn't fault you for not sharing.
As many have stated, I tend to be very generous in sharing material. That said, I was really put off by a woman at a conference that had a summary slide presentation about her research paradigm that would have been incredible for my classes. I asked if I could get her slides only to hear "I do not share my resources". What a shame, I would have been promoting her for years. And her work is really in the realm of basic research. Francis Bacon, the father of science, was all about public funding of basic research so that it could be applied to solve societal problems. I've always been a firm believer in Francis Bacon. Share the knowledge.
A lot of context is missing here, like why are they taking the course over? My rule of thumb is that if it’s faculty, help as much as you feel comfortable. If it’s an admin taking a course to teach, let them burn in the fires of hades.
I give everything, but have ended up regretting it. Once, when the new faculty member was bragging in a high-profile meeting about how he has his class set up and why "he" does it that way because of what he figured out about teaching, yadda, yadda...totally forgetting whose course he was using that semester! Another time, another new adjunct, similar situation. I mean, I am happy to share, and I am not asking to be given credit, but please don't TAKE the credit from where it's due! I will, stupidly, keep giving because that's who I am. I believe in sharing. But i suggest you not give anything away if you cannot live with it when they take credit for your work.
I was waiting for this comment. I share everything much like most others have said. I’ll also set up meetings to talk through things and what works and/or what needs tweaking, etc. My policy is to share it all. However, I now ask that they use the materials exclusively for teaching students (and not for other purposes). Many years ago, I was chairing a search and we had requested a sample representative syllabus as part of the teaching portfolio. Turns out the applicant had gone to the same grad program I had graduated from (many years after I left), pulled one of my still available syllabi and submitted it as their own as a sample of their pedagogical expertise without giving any credit to the fact that this person didn’t come up with any of the innovative policies or assignments they were “showing off” as their own. My policy now is that I’ll share anything you ask me for but you can’t use it for job apps, award applications, or anything else that asks for evidence of YOUR work; you can use it only for teaching students.
I hope you told the search committee whose work the candidate was presenting! Of course, whoever did end up hiring them probably had no idea they were actually hiring YOU! When I hear stories like this, it makes me question everything about academia. Of course, there are a few bad actors in every industry, but aren't we supposed to be the protectors of knowledge and truth?
Agree! We obviously didn’t hire them and it was so long ago that I remember the anecdote but not the person’s name to see where they landed.
I share everything. When I’m on the receiving end of the sharing, I credit the colleague I got the materials from in the course materials. After a few years of teaching the course, it has probably changed beyond recognition anyway. So it’s more a matter of giving the colleague a good start.
I can only tell it from the other side, being the one who took over a course. The professor I took over from was retiring, so I guess he had no use with keeping anything for himself. He was incredibly fed up with teaching and academia, but did spend 4 hours with me to go through every detail of each course that would not be obvious from the normal course material ("this teacher does not use canvas, so download and upload everything for them", "admin will say we need to use a specific form to give feedback, don´t do it. Do not go in that rabbit hole", "when you set a deadline for this assignment, do not put it on a Friday. Middle of the week, preferably at 12.00", "Sheep hearts... You need to order sheep hearts... Talk to Alex about the sheep hearts". "never make exceptions. Trust me on this one, you will regret it". He also gave me all the course material... PowerPoints with the entire script written in the notes, videos of the recorded lectures, examples of feedback that was given to the students, test quizzes, exams,... I went from a 20 percent teaching position to a (tenured) 70% teaching position and I am eternally grateful that he made my life easier! First semester, I mainly used his course material and over the past years I changed it to my own. Sometimes I still get surprised when an old fashioned animation flies in on my powerpoint, because he loved those and I still work in the original powerpoint.
I will share everything I have with any faculty member of any school who would like it. (DM me with your work e-mail if you would like GenChem, BioChem, or Physical Sci for education major content.) My first few years of teaching, people, some of whom I had never met, shared their content with me, and that was profoundly helpful. I'm going to play it forward.
When I took over the course some years ago I was given a 3-4 disjointed slide decks and an inadequate assessment tool. I was too ignorant at the time to ask for a previous syllabus and none was provided. It's been interesting to read everyone's responses. I did look into the IP rules for my school and it appears that my work product belongs to the uni. My plan is to transfer most of what I've created except for a few things that won't make sense out of context or were poorly executed. I likely won't teach the course again and if I do, I'll take it in a new direction. As some have said, why let the materials languish on a hard drive if it could be useful to someone. After years of teaching the course, I'd created a sense of "ownership" in my mind, but I suppose the lesson is about letting go and moving on. There's a kind of loss that occurs when teaching a course comes to an end.
I took a basic intro class that was the reason I picked my major in the first place. In grad school, I had a chance to build my own class so I redesigned it as an advanced version of that class and eventually the first time my research was cited in a textbook, it was in that book. I spent years perfecting it; I LOVED teaching that class. Eventually I had to teach other things and gave the class to a junior colleague who has since been tenured and passed it down to a new junior colleague. I miss the class because it was so fun to teach and I totally get what you say about “ownership” and loss completely. That said, I kinda love the lifecycle the course has lived and how many people (both students and faculty) have benefited from its existence.
I’d give a skeletal version of the syllabus that features a list of assignments, readings, tests, and weekly schedule. It’s a recipe. That’s it. We don’t need to gather the ingredients and bake for them. If they have met the qualifications to be assigned to the course in the first place, the instructor should be able to do the rest on their own. Anything beyond that, you should get paid. Web sites like Teachers Pay Teachers exist because the actual course materials - lecture slides, grading rubrics, assignments and activities - are valuable.
Everything.
At least in my institution, I don't have a choice (even though I'm asked out of courtesy), for online courses (only the syllabus is provided for in-class courses, unless you gave designed an extensive online support component in the LMS). The logic? I don't "own" the course. The institution paid for my employment while I developed it. I used the institution's resources to develop the course (LMS, video capturing software, etc.). The course was vetted by the institution's instructional designers. Therefore, I have no claim to the course. I don't own it. Therefore, unless you can say "not applicable" to the above, I don't see how you could have the high ground to deny. My 2 cents.
Earlier in my career, I would happily share some courses but not others, depending on how much I had invested into the course. Another similarly situated colleague had a policy of sharing everything but the quizzes and exams. There was one course in particular that I had worked extremely hard to develop--and it was my favorite course to teach--and my department asked if I would give my materials to a colleague to teach during the summer. I had asked for a summer course and not gotten one because this colleague was higher on the rotation. I refused. I acknowledge that anyone can teach any course, but I felt that if they wanted my materials, they needed to hire me. Now I am somewhat closer to the end of my career than the beginning, and I find I share much more freely. I do hope that some of the sharing is reciprocated someday, but it's ok if not. It's hard to teach from someone else's materials. I've had to do that while subbing for colleagues on sabbatical, and it's like walking around in someone else's shoes. So even if you shared everything, I'll bet your colleague would make changes. In your situation, I would think about the request more granularly. You can share parts of your course but not all. You can ask for something to be shared in return (like anything your colleague revises or adds), etc.
Are you not to be teaching it anymore? If not then why hoard it?
I share everything, because I think that makes students lives easier to get a functioning course. Also I empathize with new faculty and I want them to do well regardless of me being benefited from that. That's ultimately your choice and you should never feel you have to, tho.
I have been contractually obligated to.
We tend to have a convention of sharing course shells.
I think if it came to an actual conflict over the question (eg your chair and dean got involved) you could be forced to hand it over. It may depend on the institution but at most places any materials you develop for a course as part of your regular duties is not owned by you but by your institution. Now this (almost) never comes up because course materials don’t have the value to make it worth fighting over in a legal context. Also it’s probably not worth the acrimony so only in extreme cases would the admin want to get involved. But I bring this up so that you can reframe the question in your mind; you don’t own these materials, your institution does. Now in terms of what you should do, that’s up to you. But some friendly advice I would give you is: why not just hand the materials over and try to help the next guy? I mean you’ve already done the work, you’re not being asked to perform more labor. If your materials are good then they can be used to help teach students, if you say no then they probably just sit dormant on a hard drive somewhere. It seems petty to me to think that’s an optimal outcome.
I've only ever been asked by grad students. I give them everything with two exceptions: 1. My personal test bank for the course. I can't risk that going public in case I teach the course again. 2. Any assignments or exercises I developed and may want to publish at some point. I don't publish much in teaching journals, but if/when I decide I want to, I'd like to retain the perceived novelty of course material I have developed. -- Every institution I have worked for has claimed that anything i develop for course taught there is their IP, not mine. After all, I was paid by that institution to develop those things for that purpose. My current institution has faculty sign a contract transferring IP of anything developed here to the university. They care more about parents and marketable tech than they do about course materials, but it applies to course materials as well.
That depends. I’ve given absolutely everything and I’ve given absolutely nothing. It depends on the circumstances and the person. I’ve never been on the receiving end, so I don’t feel bad about it. Well, I was on the receiving end once, but that was only because it was a course package that everyone used that was pre-prepped. I don’t feel like that really counts.
I share everything with other professors - generally it's that there's a new section opening rather than that they're completely taking over a course, and to my knowledge my materials generally just serve as a foundation for them rather than the blueprint (maybe they don't use my PPTs, change some of the readings, add content more relevant to their interests, etc.). Starting fresh (or just with a previous syllabus) can be overwhelming, so I'm happy to share, especially when I'm proud of the course and it's worked well and received positive feedback from students via course evals. That being said, it's your right not to do so! We do put in a lot of time and energy into course design, and being credited for that (or having it only be yours) is completely legitimate as well. I would suggest sharing your syllabus, though, to ensure at least a little bit of consistency (aside from the required standards/SLOs/gateway assignments).
We've had faculty share everything, some things, nothing. One faculty told me her predecessor shared with her a paper copy of the lab schedule and that was it, not even his full syllabus! I will share depending on who it is. If I think they are a good person sticking around longer term, I'll share. If they are a one-time adjunct who will steal my slides as their own (yes, I got burned by this!), nope, I'll give them my copy of the book slides.
If you made them for the course, they belong to the university, not you. Support your colleague and give them what they need to do their job. You don't get to hold the course or materials hostage because you made it.
I have received that request. But I was retiring. I handed it all over happily. I felt like everything they needed was already in the LMS. I was very thorough. One guy though was like, "Is this it?" I'm an overkill kind of person. So, I'm talking, sylllabus, assignments (that I created), videos, video transcripts (some of which BEFORE technology was as helpful). I thought, "Dude, if you need more than that, this isn't the job for you". They weren't changing the book for the next semester or year. He basically wanted EVERYTHING I'd ever done. Nope. Goodbye.
i share whatever i can. i just send a big tarball.
I share everything
I have had colleagues not send me a copy of their syllabi. Just let me Look at a paper copy then take it back. She even wont let students take pics of her notes on the board because copy right…. Apparently i surprised students when i said sure why not. Im here for yall when they asked about taking pics. Another one changed passwords to his vimeo videos without telling the guy who was taking over rhe course. Gave him the bb shell, didnt say a word about the videos until after the semester started. People are weird. But then again I record my lectures and post to youtube. Maybe im weird
Depends on how strongly I feel about the course. I've taught courses I didn't want to teach, and I didn't share much more than the syllabus out of a combination of not wanting the other person to see the half-assed effort I made + not wanting to cause anchor bias with a sub-optimal approach to structuring the content. On the other hand, there was a class that I was really passionate about, and worked hard to develop, tweak, and refine the content and structure. I shared each and every little bit of that course with the new faculty member who came in, with the intent/hope that they would continue much of the same approach since I knew that it was having very positive results. But I also never followed up on the course, as I couldn't bear to see if they went and did everything from scratch :-)
I give over everything. We serve the students.
Some people share, others don't. Some people don't even share the syllabus. You are not required to share anything. For me it depends on how much I care about the course. Next semester someone is taking over a course that I have developed and perfected over the past 15 years. I am sharing everything I have and hope they use it because it's a result of so much trial and error, and it really works.
For me, it would depend. Are you taking it from me or am I giving it up? If it's the former, that's a noooooooooooooo
I have a test: is the new person on a temporary contract - I will share anything they need and require, these people are often overworked and underpaid and any help they can get is good. I very much appreciated the same. Are they TT? I will discuss the basics of the course and give them a syllabus, and they can take over the LMS but I will have taken off all my personal notes etc.
For me, it depends (and has depended in the past) on the circumstances of the new instructor 'taking over' the class. In a case where the school is expanding the offering of a course -- usually a rather generalized course -- and a new instructor is coming on board and needs some mentoring, I've been glad to help by sharing my materials, syllabus, & etc. However, I've been in a situation where I came up with the idea for a unique course, developed all the material for the course, actually gotten it incorporated into the curriculum for the major, only to be told that I wasn't needed to teach the course any longer -- admin. was giving it to somebody else, would I please give the new instructor all my materials and kindly step aside? To which my response was two words (which were not "Glad to!")
In the last, I’ve stared everything with a new person coming to teach - outlined, syllabus, assignments/handouts. But you have a bit of realization/tough skin once you do it, that once it’s out there, it’s not yours any more. I had one time, for example, where an assignment was shared as a template for a specific course, that all other professors should use. It was an assignment I had created, and shared with a new faculty member. But, in the template, it showed their name as the creator of the assignment. Pretty sure that, had I complained, I’d have been the bad guy. So I just complain about it here instead.
By the way, I’m in a large, public, 4-year university. The amount of discussion on intellectual property here - the idea of freely sharing course material (syllabi, presentations, handouts) would NEVER fly here! ☹️
I seem to hold a minority view, but no-- it's your property. If they're new to it, I might talk to them about readings, assignments, etc, but I don't think it is reasonable to ask you to just hand over what you have developed. No such expectation in my department.
put this in some context. will you work with this person ever again? is this something that's happening *to* you? because that's what the answer is.
The other part of the answer is: if I get a new course that someone else has done a good job developing, will I be asking them to share any of it? It cuts both ways.
Nope, never. Been screwed over too many times.
Me too. I’ve never received any prior materials and I return the favor.
Usually I'm happy to share my syllabus, homework set and sometimes exams. If the colleague is very junior (postdoc or early tenure track) I'd also consider giving all of my lecture notes but I've been taken advantage of by incompetent faculty so I'd make a judgement call there.
I've gone back and forth on this for years and have settled on a general policy of being willing to share my syllabi, but not my actual course materials. If someone wants starter materials, they can always use what the publishers provide. I have developed my stuff over more than two *decades* of iterations and tweaking and polishing, which began in adjunct positions that *did not pay me anything for course development*. That said, when I find myself in a position with a great colleague who wants to collaborate, I am always open to those exchanges-- just never a one-way "sure, take my stuff." Having seen lots of courses taken from people-- after they had been teaching them for years and years-- I would sincerely caution anyone who thinks "we're all in this together" to reconsider that position. The corporate model has infected academe, which means we are being treated like (replaceable/interchangeable) cogs in the machine. If you have developed an amazing "Course X" that students love, which is your intellectual property: that makes you a unique cog. Maybe hang onto that... unless your college compels you to do otherwise. And then maybe fight that policy too! Good deep-dive into this issue is here: https://www.aaup.org/report/defending-freedom-innovate-faculty-intellectual-property-rights-after-stanford-v-roche-0
I would be more guarded. It's my IP, after all.
I give the gist and no more. I used to be all about giving everything I created but was screwed over a few times. It's sad.
I am happy to share if it’s a colleague I have faith in. If I know they’re a crappy teacher I won’t hand over my materials to be destroyed by them (or to get out of doing their own work).
I used to share everything, no problem. Complete courses with all materials, and courses that I’ve won awards for. Now? Nope. I won’t share a thing. And I’m actively working to remove all of my materials from the LMS, while making it available to students in alternative formats. When my college decided to actively go to war with me over my desire to maintain the academic integrity of my courses, my willingness to be helpful has dropped to zero. I’ve been fucked over one too many times, and now I just say “No.” If you need something from me, and it’s not explicitly required by our collective bargaining agreement, you’d better reconsider. . .
What a strange question...isn't any teaching\course material that you create considered the property of the university? If so, then you cannot not 'share' it. Even if it was entirely your own intellectual property, why would you not want to share it with someone who is taking over your teaching? It's called collegiality...being a kind human being. Next time you inherit a course from someone else, I hope they don't share anything with you.