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Issues & Campaigns

Mary Bryson

After having been given responsibility for developing a new online course, UBC professor Mary Bryson received an e-mail from the administrator overseeing the program asking her to sign a contract transferring rights to "course materials" to the university. The contract required that Bryson acknowledge the university could use the materials without attributing authorship and could revise and modify them or use them in a different context, without the author's consent. The contract further outlined that the university, not Bryson, would decide which materials were ultimately used in the course.

Bryson refused to sign the contract and was removed from the assignment to develop the course. The faculty association grieved the employer's actions under the collective agreement. The matter went to arbitration.

In an important decision, arbitrator James Dorsey found for the association and Bryson on all counts. He held that the scope of the union's exclusive bargaining authority included the right to negotiate about matters related to the copyright ownership and that the employer, by negotiating directly with members on this matter, violated this right.

The arbitrator also held that "ownership of the copyright in work produced in the course of employment by an academic author, rather than the university employer is important to support, foster and preserve academic freedom."

The Bryson arbitration decision is a landmark in the struggle to insure that faculty, not administrators, determine the content of courses.

Resources

	Landmark Academic Freedom Decision at UBC (Apr 2004)
	Arbitration Award re: Dr. Mary Bryson and Master of Educational Technology (Feb 2004)