Staff ownership of documents

[Sagima]

Wasn't too sure where to put this but we have been told that work produced by staff on school-owned devices is the property of the school but if they produce it on their own device then it is theirs. Hopefully that makes sense - is that actually true?

Specifically with regards to teacher's lesson based documents.

[Andrew_C]

Basically sounds about right, but perhaps not quite. If I bring my laptop in to work and create a document in their time, who's would that be?

 

Would also be worth looking at their contract; a recent one might well specify, an old one may well not. My wife's new job laid out ownership quite clearly. And she's an art technician.

[Oaktech]

It's in our AUP that if it's stored on school systems, it's the schools to do with as we choose.

 

Anecdotal evidence however suggests it won't stand up in court though.

 

A teacher at my last place made some beautiful schemes of work for a particular topic, published them for profit on a website and the school took her to court based on the fact it was stored on school systems and lost.

[elsiegee40]

@GrumbleDook undoubtedly knows this one

[clockend25]

We had a bod here who, after being told he'd no longer be leading a certain part of our SPD curriculum, came to me requesting that everything related to it on our shared areas be deleted, along with any backups of the data. This was on the grounds that he'd created all the work and it was thus his property.

 

Fun times.

[localzuk]

Usually, it can be summed up as this:

 

If it is produced during paid working hours - it belongs to the employer, unless specifically agreed that it belongs to the employee.

If it is produced on a personal device during working hours, the above still applies.

If it is produced on a personal device during off hours then it belongs to the employee

If it produced on a school owned device during off hours, this will depend on the agreement with the school. If the device is allowed to be used for personal purposes, then it would be claimable as a personal document. If it is a business only device then it belongs to the school still.

 

That's how we've always handled it here. If it wasn't like that, BYOD would mean staff would never create anything that belongs to the school.

[edutech4schools]

Usually, it can be summed up as this:

 

If it is produced during paid working hours - it belongs to the employer, unless specifically agreed that it belongs to the employee.

If it is produced on a personal device during working hours, the above still applies.

If it is produced on a personal device during off hours then it belongs to the employee

If it produced on a school owned device during off hours, this will depend on the agreement with the school. If the device is allowed to be used for personal purposes, then it would be claimable as a personal document. If it is a business only device then it belongs to the school still.

 

That's how we've always handled it here. If it wasn't like that, BYOD would mean staff would never create anything that belongs to the school.

 

Definitely the same as above when I worked for Canon UK. If you are getting paid to do some work then the company or school own it as they have paid you to do it.

[GrumbleDook]

Usually, it can be summed up as this:

 

If it is produced during paid working hours - it belongs to the employer, unless specifically agreed that it belongs to the employee.

If it is produced on a personal device during working hours, the above still applies.

If it is produced on a personal device during off hours then it belongs to the employee

If it produced on a school owned device during off hours, this will depend on the agreement with the school. If the device is allowed to be used for personal purposes, then it would be claimable as a personal document. If it is a business only device then it belongs to the school still.

 

That's how we've always handled it here. If it wasn't like that, BYOD would mean staff would never create anything that belongs to the school.

 

The problem with this is if it is created outside of school hours, for the purpose of your employment, and you choose not to use the employee provided device and use your own device (as a means of getting round the employee owning it) then it will fail when contested.

 

It is a horrible, grey area and unless you nail it in the contract of employment you can spend ages arguing over it at court, or in arbitration.

 

As teachers, they are contracted to work a specified number of hours a year as 'directed hours'. During that time there are allocations for planning and preparation. If staff choose not to use their directed hours for the directed work (i.e. the PPA time is spent sat in the staff room having a cuppa as it also just looked at as a free period) then that teacher is choosing to complete the work in their own time ... but it is still working for the school and the school own the IPR to what is created. At this point, you get into long discussions about proving people did or didn't work when expected, looking at competency, time management, whether there was significant instruction from direct line-manager as well as SLT, etc.

 

Things like the TES premium resources muddy it further (though a good idea to reimburse those who create darned good resources). There are staff that work solely during the holidays on additional resources which they then sell but allow the school to use at no cost. They do this by creating the resource, never using in the lessons until it has been uploaded to their designated sales / sharing portal and then they download from there to use. This is a grey area again, but most schools view it as acceptable as they get to use the resources anyway. As long as the member of staff allows the resource to still be used if they leave then that is fine, but it gets murky again when it comes to adaption of resources ... this is where Creative Commons licences work best.

 

Leicester City have gone one better though. They have gone down the OER route to start with. OER Schools | DigiLit Leicester has more info.

 

So, back to what the OP asked.

 

Short answer is that it would generally belong to the school, but it really depends on the contract of employment and anything else needs legal advice.