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Student in a café (in Vienna): In the corona crisis, most of the lessons take place online
Photo:
ALEX HALADA / AFP
Imagine following an online lecture as a student and having a question about a comment from the professor.
So you search the Internet for an email address - and find that he's been dead for two years.
The Canadian student Aaron Ansuini experienced this story at Concordia University in Montreal.
His professor Francois-Marc Gagnon, despite his passing, still gives an online course on Canadian art history with recorded videos.
The case caused horror on Twitter.
The university apologized: “We regret that the students felt that they were not clearly informed.
The biography of Dr.
Gagnon have been updated in the course information that was made available to the registered students, ”said university spokeswoman Vannina Maestracci.
Problem goes deeper
However, the problem runs deeper for academics.
They fear that by creating digital recordings for courses, they will lose control of their work.
And that the videos are used as a substitute for paid employees.
In view of the corona crisis, more and more students are staying at home, lectures must be prepared by the lecturers for online teaching.
For trade unions and legal professionals, the curiosity at Canadian University now raises general questions about recorded work.
Jenny Lennox of the UK Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) raised "a number of concerns" about the use of recorded lectures.
It's not about not wanting to do the lectures, said Lennox.
"The point is to limit how they are used so that intellectual property is not spread ad infinitum" - that is, to infinity.
Who has the copyright?
University spokeswoman Maestracci did not want to comment on the copyright of the lecture video.
Instead, she pointed out that the course also had a faculty and teaching assistants who were in contact with the students.
And lived.
The legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation in the USA, Corynne McSherry, sees the question of the copyright of the lectures as "a longstanding, sensitive topic".
The pandemic has increased tensions over class ownership, she said.
"If I were a professor at a university, I would ask my employer to confirm that my work is mine."
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hba / Reuters