Another perspective on the ethics is that of intellectual property belonging to the prof as a professional. A teacher/instructor/prof is not an employee the same way a factory worker is. If there is a reason that money should not go to the prof shouldn't it just as well go to a charity. Isn't this part of the same problem as intellectual property going to any employer? In recent years increasingly many companies and universities grab onto the ideas of professionals and treat then as corporate property.
Art dennis roberts wrote: > of course, universities regularly let faculty consult ... with outside > agents/agencies/clients that ... might clearly benefit by doing (down > the road) business with the institution so, what we have below is > clearly a double standard .. in some cases, we allow conflict and in > other cases we do not > > usually, faculty textbook writing is considered an external activity for > the faculty ... it is assumed in most cases that you are doing it on > your "own" time (which may not be true but that is the general > assumption) ... however, if it were not for faculty writing good books > ... students would not have decent instructional material so, i don't > think it is necessarily appropriate to insist either on A: you can't > use/require your own book or B: if you do, you must NOT get any gain out > of it ... why not? you are the one who put the effort into the product? > > in most institutions of decent size, there is no process for monitoring > or making a decision about a specific book used in a specific course ... > ie, there are no textbook approval committees ... the only exception to > this might be in large multi section, multi instructor courses where the > department has made some overall decision about a book ... so, the > freedom to decide on A book is not that of an individual instructor > > also, there is no such thing as a best book for a course ... in > statistics for example ... there are dozens and dozens of options ... > who is to say that my own book is somehow less appropriate for my > students than any one of 50 others? > > finally, except in very few cases ... textbook authors reap so LITTLE > financial gain from the effort they invested .. we are talking about a > mere drop in the bucket ... and the fuss over this is blown way out of > proportion > > perhaps in institution should have some mechanism for deciding in the > cases of very large classes where ... if i require MY book in the course > i regularly teach that has 400 students a term ... where i CAN make a > lot of $$$ JUST by having MY students have to buy it ... but, in the run > of the mill course ... that an instructor might teach once a year that > has 40 students in it ... leave him/her alone ... this level of micro > managing COSTS far more than any level of unethicalNESS that we might > level against such a practice > > At 11:30 AM 1/15/2003, Jerrold Zar wrote: > >> I agree that this issue is related to the situation where instructors >> require their books to be used by their students, and the isntructors >> therefore get royalties on those book purchases. > > > . > . > ================================================================= > Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: > . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . > ================================================================= . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
