The digitization and control of intellectual property: Institutional patterns of distributed learning behavior and the organizational policy response

It is important to improve our understanding of the connection between distributed learning behavior and corresponding university institutional intellectual property policy at the organizational and national level. This study utilizes a mixed methods approach by first employing 2 methods of analysis, a quantitative examination of distributed learning activity at a faculty member- and institutional-level using two National Center of Education Statistics data sets: the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty and Integrated Postsecondary Education Survey, and a qualitative analysis of institutional intellectual property policies that address distributed learning types of products and activities to determine how ownership and control issues are being addressed. The results produced from the quantitative analysis were used to construct 4 institutional types descriptive of distributed learning (i.e., email, website use, distance education) activity concentration by institutional characteristics (i.e., Carnegie classification, control, enrollment, expenditures per student) to then conduct a qualitative study of 46 U.S. institutional intellectual property copyright policies. Policies were selected and analyzed according to four categories. The first category is ownership and control of products developed by faculty members (the restriction or control of the products of faculty's activities, and the claims on the proceeds of those activities, and shares of royalties allocated to creators). The second category addresses the issue of product disaggregation (ownership and control according to the type of product, the extent to which distributed learning products or activities specifically addressed). The third category has to do with the actual scope of the policy (extent to which policies address employees involved in the production process, work time/course of employment, resources, and university units involved). The last category is exemplary distributed learning policy (extent to which exemplary distributed learning policies address activities or products differently from the others)