Intellectual Property and Conflict of Commitment
Membership and Charge to the Committee
Links to other academic IP policies
Background Information about Copyright
Members of the Faculty Committee
Professors Hal Abelson, EECS
Randall Davis, EECS
Peter S. Donaldson, Literature
Steven R. Lerman, Director, CECI, Faculty Chair, Civil and Environment Engineering
David Litster, Vice President and Dean for Research
Dava Newman, Aeronautics and Astronautics
Steven Pinker, Brain and Cognitive Science
Thomas M. Stoker, Sloan School
Charge to the Committee
The Provost’s charge to the committee is to develop a set of guiding principles that will address the following areas:Ownership of Intellectual Property: Traditionally MIT has exerted ownership of intellectual property created from research and done so only rarely in the arena of educational material. Ownership has been determined by, and has been based on the use of MIT resources in the development of the intellectual property. What constitutes intellectual property in the arena of new educational technology, and how do our principles apply to deciding whether the intellectual property was developed using Institute resources?
Faculty Commitment to MIT: Implicit in faculty governance is an understanding of a faculty member’s commitment to MIT. What constitutes a conflict of commitment in the new world of educational delivery?
Faculty Dissemination of Scholarly Material: A critical part of the academic enterprise is the control by the faculty of the dissemination of the products of their scholarly work. Any new principles must be consistent with this understanding. How has the new medium changed the dissemination the faculty’s work?
Reporting of Faculty Outside Professional Activities: The Institute has relied on faculty reporting of outside professional activities to monitor the potential for conflict of interest. Does our present reporting process satisfy this need to monitor the conflict of commitment?