Hit: Web page ownership Part 3

[Rosanne Zajko <rmz@ADELPHIA.NET>]

Part 3:
_______________

This is purely my opinion but...you indicated a couple of critical items
that I believe put the ownership of this webpage firmly in your grasp.
Those items are:

"The library web page is hosted on a server independent of the school's
service."
"The artwork is original and I work on the page daily on my own time (not
school time) in the evenings and on weekends."


The page we have for our library has been designed and maintained by
several of the library staff.  This work is mainly done during the work day
and the page is on our district web server.  In our case it is my
understanding that the our library and the district own our pages.

_______________________________

Check your teaching contract.  My contract says that the district owns it,
and that I am paid to produce it.

But you said that there is a link from the district's web page and that the
page is sitting on a separate server.  You also said that you do it on your
own time and anyone who grades papers at night does that on their own time.

Are you paying for it to sit on the out-of-district server?

You may have to find someone in your district to assist you in interpreting
your contract, etc.

______________________________

I think I understand your question and my situation may not pertain to
yours. First of all, our school district has a board policy regarding web
pages, that clearly spells out teachers pages. I am the web master here, so
the library page is part of the bigger picture. The teachers have their own
pages but they all come under my umbrella as web master, so they are
considered district pages. If a teacher left the district the page would be
removed by me and a new page given to the new teacher/librarian. Officially
teachers are not supposed to have web sites that are not "legal" . So far
we don't have any web police to monitor it and everything has gone smoothly.

_______________________________

I think this would be pretty much the same as a teacher writing a book.  If
it is done on thier own time with their own resources the property rights
would belong to the teacher.  I would say that your website belongs to you
because you created it with your own equipment, posted outside of the the
school web site, and created it.

______________________________

my webpage is on the district server so i think it is owned by them.
would i take it down when/if i were to leave?  probably not  i would
remove my name as the webmaster probably though.  if i thought i might
need it as reference to a future position i might slide in something about
'original page created by...'

______________________________

This is true of my website also.  We are hosted by one of Illinois'
Library Systems which is part of the state library. So, this means that I
would not have access to this server unless I was a librarian within the
state of Illinois, and follow the guidelines of it being a library
webspage, not a personal one.   The page is listed as the high school
library's page,
I am listed as the creator, along with credit given to the students that
worked in the
library that year (credit given to the group, not to individual students)
I "hope" that the next librarian (I am retiring at the end of this year)
will continue the website, however, I assume that sometime he/she will
re-design the page to reflect their philosophy and their creativity.  I
hope some of my work will prove of benefit to him/her, and will be left
intact and other sections will be updated.  However, if they don't, the
page is no longer mine, but now belongs to the next librarina.

        I  keep a backup disk and notebook detailing the webpage just incase I
need some of the information in the future.  I am hoping to volunteer at a
couple of schools and the local public library next year, and maybe I will
be able to contine, this time representing their libraries.

__________________________________________

Did you copyright your work? I'm not sure if that would protect you but it
is a start.

________________________________________


Rosanne Zajko - SLMS
Ancillae Assumpta Academy
Wyncote, Pa. 19095
rmz@adelphia.net

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