Selling your "work"?
Selling your "work"?
(OP)
I found this article intriguing. It seems to me that the lesson plans should be proprietary to the particular school system of which a teacher in employed.
h ttp://www. cnn.com/20 06/EDUCATI ON/06/28/e bay.for.te achers.ap/ index.html
I have countless electrical details, calculation templates, report templates, presentations, and a slew of other time saving “tools” which I use on a daily basis as part of my job. Considering I have created these on company time, using company software, on a company PC…..does it not “belong” to the company? I imagine that it does. If I were to start “selling”, say CAD files of electrical details….I imagine I’d get fired…and probably into legal trouble.
However, in the article above (assuming a public school system)….People are profiting from work they have created most likely on government time, using government equipment, for use within a government institution. Does anyone else see an ethics issue here….or perhaps a legal issue?
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I have countless electrical details, calculation templates, report templates, presentations, and a slew of other time saving “tools” which I use on a daily basis as part of my job. Considering I have created these on company time, using company software, on a company PC…..does it not “belong” to the company? I imagine that it does. If I were to start “selling”, say CAD files of electrical details….I imagine I’d get fired…and probably into legal trouble.
However, in the article above (assuming a public school system)….People are profiting from work they have created most likely on government time, using government equipment, for use within a government institution. Does anyone else see an ethics issue here….or perhaps a legal issue?





RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
Aside from the ethics issue of selling/buying. This seems like a serious quality problem.
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
http://onelook.com/?w=free+rein&ls=a
TTFN
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
Copyright law 101: You wrote it, you own it (unless you sign your rights away).
RE: Selling your "work"?
Teachers and engineers are both exempt so our off time is not strictly our own. If I produce something after hours primarily for my work, it belongs to my employer; especially if employer resources are used. "take" sounds like something went along, like school district owned textbooks or incomplete plans begun during working hours, or a district owned laptop. If I write it under these conditions, I don't own it; any right signed away every time I endorse a paycheck.
RE: Selling your "work"?
I say we close this loophole. Teachers make too much money for far too little effort.
RE: Selling your "work"?
Certainly if the teacher's contract covers this area, it would rule. I have a hard time imagining such a clause with board members under public scrutiny seeking re-election.
I detect sarcasm. I'm sure we can all find the apparent justification for un-ethical behavior if we look. Still not ethical.
RE: Selling your "work"?
Also teachers can get paid over-time for time spent over the number of hours they are required to be at work each day. There is a cap on this amount, and it does not apply to work done at home. As far as a taecher's time not strictly being their own, I have never heard of a teacher being required to come into school after normal hours and not being paid for it. As an exempt engineer though you can be required to be on call or work extra hours to complete an assigned task, with no garauntee of extra compensation.
RE: Selling your "work"?
It easy to turn a head away from this issue because its for a classroom, children, etc...But its the "principle" here... (no pun intended!) that someone is already getting paid to produce a document (by tax payer money), then sells the document for additional personal profit. It seems this should be illegal, as a means to protect the tax payers. Once the document has been produced, it should become the property of the school system(s). The school system could then use/distribute such a document at will.
RE: Selling your "work"?
The teachers are NOT getting paid to produce interesting lessons that might actually teach something. Your tax dollars are paying to have someone, anyone, with a teaching degree, sit and read out of a textbook thus providing the information required to pass an exam on said information. If the students don't retain the information that is not their problem. Granted a teacher that teaches like that will most likly not stay at that school very long but in an area where teachers are in short supply schools will hire any warm body that comes through the door.
RE: Selling your "work"?
Replace that pen with a new one that's full of ink, and I'd call it good.
Teachers are exempt from OT regs in my state. I believe this may be of federal origin. Colective bargaining agreements can probably override this.
RE: Selling your "work"?
Many teachers get paid extra for coaching sports, why don't the teachers that don't coach get extra money for taking the time to be a better teacher?
RE: Selling your "work"?
Some think there is a rule being broken. Which rule? There are a lot of assumptions about what the rules might be or oughta be. No one seems to know what the rules are for teachers.
The mere fact that teachers are robbed of their overtime like engineers are does not automatically mean they must surrender what they create on their own time.
RE: Selling your "work"?
That is in fact the standard contractual position for engineers in Australia. Even if they don't use the employer's pen. Even if they had the idea in the middle of the night.
I usually cross it out.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
Before you defend that, be sure that you sell all your McGraw-Hill or Prentice-Hall stocks...
Everybody can come with different points of view, but if the works is done outside normal working hours and not using bosses'resources, why should they have any right to it? With exemption or not exemption.
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
I'm fairly sure that the same applied in the UK but I can't remember chapter and verse.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Selling your "work"?
In my country this is called (in a free translation) a "lionine contract" (from lion) meaning that you are signing a contract that one of the parties (you) has much more responsibilities than it would be reasonable in a normal contract work and these clauses can be revoked.
What I understood is if there is no such clause in the contract. Even with exemption, is the work developed in the weekend or outside working time using each own means belonging to the company or not? In my point of view, it belongs to the person, not the company.
RE: Selling your "work"?
Mind you, both times I crossed it out.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Selling your "work"?
You can't compare the contracts and obligations you might be under in an engineering position to this situation. For instance if a manager (salary) at a fast food resturaunt created a new way to cook things faster and better and chose to patent their idea, just because they are under contract to that business they are not obligated to turn over the rights to that patent. They could patent it and sell it back to the company or even start their own resturaunt. In an engineering disipline they would almost certainly be obligated to turn it over to the company. It all depends on what is written in the contract.
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
I don't think there is a clear consensus on your assertion about lesson plans. There is certainly the view that the textbook is the lesson plan already and what a teacher does to expand on that is their own work.
Edward L. Klein
Pipe Stress Engineer
Houston, Texas
"All the world is a Spring"
All opinions expressed here are my own and not my company's.
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
Do the professors write them all at home, after hours?
I am certain that none of them ever used a graduate student in writing their book, that would be unethical, right?
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
Therefor, the product of the graduate student is the property of the professor.
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
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RE: Selling your "work"?
If the product of the graduate students belong to the professor it follows then the the product of the professor belongs to the university. I know patents that result from reasearch grant belong to universitys but book royalties go to the author.
RE: Selling your "work"?
RE: Selling your "work"?
Bottom line: unless explicitly stipulated in a contract, common law and precedence would place ownership of the copyright to syllabi, lecture notes, etc. with the school.
TTFN
RE: Selling your "work"?
My dad, a college professor, as part of his contract with the university, must give up a percentage of any profits he recieves from intellectual properties. I'm not sure what that percentage is... but I do remember from when I was a kid, that it was an important point when he was negotiating for tenure.
Wes C.
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When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions...
RE: Selling your "work"?
The same could be said about engineering reports.