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I have a class in a US university that is using a 3rd-party site to charge students a fee to access some of the homework essential to the course. One of the instructors (not mine) holds the copyright to these required Excel spreadsheets, and so every student is being assessed a small fee in order to complete their homework.

With online classes using an ebook publisher's website, paying to be able to do homework is common practice. But that fee is usually assessed and disclosed as part of the textbook/ebook access fee. For this course, we are already paying such a fee for the ebook publisher's website.

Is it normal (or generally acceptable) for an instructor to create a privately-owned website in order to collect "copyright fees" from students because that instructor created original homework files? Is it normal for instructors to require students to pay to use intangible, intellectual property? Or, failing being a regular occurrence, does it at least happen with a high enough frequency to be a noticed, if not often used, practice?

We are explicitly being told the charge is for the use of the copyrighted materials and is a copyright fee, rather than a licensing or maintenance fee. I've never come across this or even heard of it being done before, so I call on the experience of those more grounded in academic norms.

This isn't a matter of purchasing supplies or textbook fees, as those are already assessed by the University or comply with University policy. The nature of the assignment and materials is also not so complex or technically difficult that assignments, or reasonable alternatives, could not be provided using existing University resources.

While I greatly appreciate the input of the SE community, I know that I also have ways to investigate this at my specific institution and am not using SE as a substitute for doing my own due diligence.

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    Related: Is it ethical to profit by having my students buy my textbook? – ff524 Sep 02 '15 at 20:05
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    Related: Is it ethical for a lecturer to require students to purchase an online learning kit where kit is used for course assessments? (of course, that situation does not have the conflict of interest inherent in this one.) – ff524 Sep 02 '15 at 20:06
  • @ff524 Correct. That question also seems to be about a online learning kit through an established ebook/elearning vendor, which is now a very common practice and is usually part of the textbook bundle. (In this course, I also have to purchase the ebook learning bundle through McGraw-Hill, so I'm already paying a fee of sorts to do the bulk of my homework). –  Sep 02 '15 at 20:22
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    You're obviously looking for someone to agree with you that it is uncommon (based on your question and comments to answers). I agree, it is uncommon for this exact scenario to occur. I also happen to find it at least marginally unethical, although I know that does not interest you. – Dan Sep 02 '15 at 21:11
  • @Dan My mind would be much more at ease if it was the general consensus that such a scenario (or similar scenario) were common practice. Then it'd just be a matter of me not having enough information, and my discomfort stemming from that. I'd really much rather not have this be a real issue –  Sep 02 '15 at 21:14
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    I've certainly never heard of such practice. I know lots of examples of instructors hiding required course materials that they created behind a password, but not even one that requires additional payment beyond tuition. But my experience is anecdote, not real data. – JeffE Sep 02 '15 at 21:23
  • FFS America, as if textbooks and courses was not bad enough (UK here, horrified by this) – Alec Teal Sep 03 '15 at 00:06
  • This seems extremely odd...however, we still had to buy textbooks in my day and kids these days seem to all pirate the pdf versions so maybe profs are doing this to make up the difference? – J... Sep 03 '15 at 00:47
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    My first reaction here is : "Is this even legal?" ... – Autar Sep 03 '15 at 07:54
  • @Autar I'd have to ask that on law.se. But, I think the only possible legal issues here would be in regard to the FERPA laws regarding the storage and use of confidential student information. I've already contacted the proper university entity to get verification of their FERPA compliance. –  Sep 03 '15 at 07:59
  • This might (unfortunately) depend on the subject area. I can only speak from my experience that this is completely unheard of in mathematics and would be regarded as highly odious. – darij grinberg Sep 03 '15 at 15:34
  • Not common. But how do we document that? Each of us is familiar with a small corner of the academic world. // It's not clear to me where you saw a possible FERPA connection. Can you explain that part? – aparente001 Sep 03 '15 at 17:23
  • @aparente001 The website requests student information from me that's protected by FERPA and also stores certain grades. –  Sep 03 '15 at 18:41
  • @CreationEdge - Doesn't the instructor already have that information? Also, I'm confused -- is the instructor revealing that protected information to anyone? (My child suffered a FERPA violation once -- his teacher shouted across the classroom something embarrassing about his 504 plan and his health status, so I did some reading about FERPA. Thanks in advance, I find this an interesting topic.) – aparente001 Sep 03 '15 at 18:44
  • I don't know if it's normal, it's not atleast in spain, where i've studied, but it's not only highly unethical to charge for extra material (books aside) required to pass the course, but also dubious of that teacher's morals. If a teacher was trying to force me to PAY for HOMEWORK, i'd be filling a case on the education department by the lunch break. All my course materials, books included, have been written by my uni's teachers and are provided for free on digital format and for a small, single for the whole material group, 5 to 15€ printing charge if you wanted them phyisically. – CptEric Mar 03 '17 at 11:03

4 Answers4

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I think that, at best, there is a conflict of interest for an instructor to force students to use a web service that charges money of which s/he gets a cut.

That said, are you sure that that's how it is? For textbooks -- where the same conflict of interest exists -- it is common practice at many universities that if a professor uses her own textbook for a class, that that part of the royalties that the professor receives through his own students' purchases actually goes into a university fund outside the professor's control. The same may in fact be the case at your university -- the professor may simply never have talked about the details in class.

Wolfgang Bangerth
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    I have had multiple classes where the textbook author is the instructor. That's understandable, and that information is provided up front: The instructor and textbook are disclosed before classes begin, and you may have the option to pick a different course. You may also be able to charge the textbook to your school bill. And, you may also be able to purchase the book secondhand. You're also getting something: a textbook. But, I'm not asking specifically about the ethics, but whether or not this is a common practice. –  Sep 02 '15 at 20:40
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    CreationEdge: I doubt it's common tight now... but I don't know how to prove that one way or the other without doing an industry survey study. Anything less is anecdote/opinion. – keshlam Sep 02 '15 at 20:45
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    Indeed. I've never heard of such an arrangement. So I don't think it's "common", but I wouldn't know "how uncommon" it is. – Wolfgang Bangerth Sep 04 '15 at 11:19
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The main point is that it seems that the only reason why the website is set up is to collect the fees, as it would be no problem to distribute them in another way. To me, this is a big difference to the charging for a paper copy scenario, where actually costs occur: If the instructor is not provided free printing facilities, then it would not be unreasonable to actually ask the students to pay the price he has paid to make the copies (in fact, I remember having paid such copy fees). If he does not do this for profit, but only in order not to have to pay the copy out of his own pocket, it's fine. Charging when the instructor does not have any expenses (or could avoid them easily by using free university services), in contrast, would be unethical, I believe,

damian
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    Whether or not it's fine, or related to costs, is this a normal practice? –  Sep 02 '15 at 20:41
  • At my high school and my university (both in Germany, 1990's and 2000's) we were charged a copy fee in some classes where we got a lot of copies (think of some euros per year), and I think it was not common in all classes, but definitly not unheard of. One should keep in mind, though, that tuition is/was free in Germany. So, at least in that country at that time, it was a quite normal practice. – damian Sep 02 '15 at 20:48
  • Students at my university are assessed a technology fee than includes an allotment of page printing (thousands of pages), and overages are charged to our University bill. But that's for a physical supply, which this is not. We're being charged just to look at something and turn in an assignment. All things we could do with all of our already-paid-for resources. Is that normal? –  Sep 02 '15 at 21:01
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    I would not consider that normal, no. Not at all. – damian Sep 02 '15 at 21:08
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    It feels even more unethical, given that the instructor probably wrote these exercises as part as his (already paid) job. – Per Alexandersson Sep 03 '15 at 00:24
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It is like charging students for handouts, which could include homework assignments, and also like charging students to acquire a mandatory textbook which contains homework assignments. Suppose that the institution had no printing / copying facilities available to the instructor (there are such places). Then you probably would not expect the instructor to provide free instructional materials, any more that you would expect the instructor to provide free sulfur if you were taking a chemistry lab class. So I think the web page matter does cloud the issue, or at least complicate it.

Since this involves a third party website, it is reasonable to assume that the copyright holder has some contractual duty to that company to provide revenue, that is, they probably get a percentage, and the copyright holder isn't allowed to give out free copies to his own students.

If indeed the author created his own company for distributing the materials and thus can set policy, he could in principle give his own students a free ride (and we would then expect a question about whether it is fair for an instructor to give free access to just his own students). So that could mean that it is possible for the author to make materials free to his own students; that does not mean that he is morally obligated to do so.

It seems to me the question boils down to the broader issue of whether an academician should profit from the sale of his intellectual creations to his students, or to any students. That's not the question that you asked, but if you agree that it is proper for a person to profit from the sale of his intellectual creations, then I think you would have to agree that that extends to sale to one's own students, and that the textbook / homework distinction is not material.

user6726
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  • I don't think charging students for textbooks is at all like charging students for class-specific handouts. There are usually specific policies in place for textbook sales. Supplies, also, can usually be purchased from your choice of vendors. Regardless, we're not being charged for the supplies (students already pay fees for all sorts of technology issues, as well as being provided printing allotments and way to charge supplies directly to the university). This has been the explicit communication to us (it's strictly a copyright licensing fee, in their words). –  Sep 02 '15 at 20:27
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Sounds fishy to me...having to pay a "copyright fee" to access required homework/classwork. And, who is getting this fee??

I can understand buying a textbook, paying for copying/handouts (usually in my case, those were just the cost of making the copies), paying for supplies (for extra things or were included in the course's cost, e.g. an extra lab fee). In those cases, you got a tangible product in your hand. And, as was stated, you could buy new or used and via alternate vendors -- especially books.

Shouldn't that "fee" be included in a courses costs, not paid for by students directly? If it's truly "necessary" for class, shouldn't it be part of the course's cost -- not an additional charge?

True, I've been out of school for many years...so the commonality of this I can't answer...but, it sounds rather odd.

David Fass
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