Article 21 : academic freedom / copyright and intellectual property
21.1 Academic Freedom
21.1.1 Academic freedom includes the freedom to examine and question, teach and learn, research and invigilate as well as disseminate opinion(s) and speculate without deference to prescribed doctrine on questions, ideas, principles, concepts and issues related to pedagogy and research.
21.1.2 The Employer accepts its responsibilities to Employees in upholding their rights to academic freedom in performance of their duties as long as said behaviours have academic substance, are pertinent to each work assignment and are subject to the reasonable direction of and agreement with the Supervisor. In the exercise of academic freedom, Employees shall discharge their responsibilities in accordance with the rightful expectations of the Employer and, in teaching functions, with the needs of the Students. The claim of academic freedom shall not excuse Employees from meeting their duties and responsibilities as set out in the Collective Agreement, their individual contracts, and the instructions of their Supervisor.
21.1.3 When the objectives, content and method of delivery are prescribed by the Supervisor in the work assignment, the Employee shall fulfill such assignment responsibly and fully. When work assignments permit Employees to have a wider degree of latitude than is possible in more fully prescribed assignments, the Employee may develop and deliver such assignment provided the content and structure have been approved by the Supervisor.
21.2 Copyright and Intellectual Property
Section 21.2 applies only to Teaching Assistants, Demonstrators, Tutors, Lab Monitors, Correctors, Proctors, and Research Assistants funded from the University's operating budget. For Employees holding Research Assistant contracts paid from external funds, if the job description does not address a specific matter of copyright or ownership of any intellectual property, section 21.2.1 applies (per Article 30.9).
21.2.1 Subject to 21.2.2, the Parties agree that the Employee has ownership and holds the copyright with respect to any materials prepared by an Employee.
21.2.2 When an Employee's contract or the written job description of the Supervisor calls for the preparation of materials including but not limited to notes, audio-visual aids, software, experimental data, reviews and synopses of literature, the Supervisor and Employee retain ownership and copyright of these materials. The Employer and the Supervisor shall give proper recognition of an Employee's contribution to these materials in accordance with the level of contribution made by the Employee and the prevailing standards or policies on authorship of the discipline concerned.
When an Employee modifies existing materials, the Employee’s grant of copyright will only cover the modified material, and not unmodified portions of the same body of work, unless all other copyright holders agree otherwise.
Despite an Employee's ownership or co-ownership of copyright as granted in the above sections, the Supervisor or Employer may require that material prepared or modified not to be distributed to others, or require that it be kept confidential. Such limitations on distribution and confidentiality may not exceed five (5) years.