At the last bargaining session, September 22-23, CFA put forward a detailed proposal regarding intellectual property and online education.

CFA Bargaining Chair Andy Merrifield said, “In this era of increased technology, it is critical that faculty’s intellectual property, including online products and videos of faculty lectures and presentations, be protected.”

Regarding intellectual property, CFA’s proposal makes clear that individual faculty’s work product, such as lecture notes, instructional texts, syllabi etc, may be used by the faculty member for non-CSU purposes unless the CSU has provided “extraordinary support” in the development of this material.

Extraordinary support is defined as over $20,000, excluding grants and normal campus resources such as office space, libraries, and benefits such as sabbaticals.

The union also proposed that individual faculty members have exclusive ownership of any video or audio recording of their lectures, seminars, performances, etc., and the CSU cannot utilize such without an agreement with the faculty member. Finally, we introduced language that this section would be a floor, not a ceiling, and that it would not preclude individual campus policies or practices which give greater rights to individual faculty members.

CFA’s proposal on Online Education breaks new ground for faculty on a very contentious topic. The union proposed (in summary) that:

1. The decision to propose a section in online format should not reduce the overall number of sections offered for that course.
2. Teaching online should be voluntary and faculty should have the right of first refusal to develop, convert or teach their course online. For lecturer faculty, that right of first refusal would be in conformance with Section 12.29.
3. Faculty who develop an online course should have the right of first refusal to teach that course for the subsequent five academic years.
4. Faculty members who convert, create, or develop an online course for the first time should be granted assigned time equivalent to the WTU’s given for teaching that course.
5. Courses taught online shall have the same compensation, WTU’s, enrollment limits, office hour requirements and other terms and conditions of employment connected with teaching the course in the classroom. All aspects of faculty contract Article 20: Workload should apply to online classes.

“This proposal provides protections for faculty in this new era of online education,” said Bargaining Chair Andy Merrifield. “Management has a notion that they can arbitrarily cram large numbers of students into online classes without negative impact on the students or the faculty. Anyone who teaches online knows how much work it can be, and without contractual protections on workload and creative control, we could be looking at a major new source of faculty exploitation with a reduction in educational quality, all for the sake of the bottom line.”

In addition to taking up online teaching, the parties signed off on a Faculty Early Retirement Program continuation letter, essentially repeating what was done in fall 2011. The joint letter states that although the parties haven’t reached agreement on all the details of FERP in the successor agreement, it is agreed that the program will continue, the current five-year eligibility will remain, and eligible faculty can apply for entry into the program for 2012.

See CFA Headlines on Sept. 27, 2011 for a full copy of the letter.

Counterproposals also were exchanged on Articles 7, 9, 16, and 21.

Finally, CFA and the Chancellor’s Office reached a tentative agreement on Article 10: Grievance Procedure, clarifying language on some technical issues including the consequences of the CO’s failure to produce documents in a timely way.