One of the issues that we should review in determining the recommendation to terminate or not the Etudes NG platform is the stipend that might be required for faculty to change platforms.
Below is the language for your consideration:
Article 40
An agreed upon amount of reassigned time or sum for substantive changes to a course. A substantive change shall include but not be limited to a change that the college requires the D/DL faculty member to make in response to significant changes in college or district platforms or delivery modes. This stipend constitutes “substantial support” by the District (see Article 41 D)
Article 41
Circumstances Relating to Substantial Support by the District. The District will own the
copyright to any work created with substantial support from the District. As used in this
Article, “substantial support” means financial support over and above the cost of the
faculty member’s normal compensation, office space, office computer, local telephone use,
minimal office supplies and copy services. Substantial support would include extra
compensation or the provision of reassigned time to create a work, the cost of providing
secretarial, technical, legal or creative services specifically for the creation of a work, as
well as the cost or value of the use of expensive District equipment or facilities (such as
professional film or recording studios). Grant funds obtained by faculty members for the
creation of works shall be considered substantial support provided by the District only if
the District is involved in the fiscal administration of the grant.
I read the above two articles together, as follows:
1. The College is not required to pay current faculty who are teaching under etudes ng to convert their classes to another platform, i.e. either moodle or coursecompass. Substantial support only applies to the "pay for hire" or "purchase" of the copyright to the unique materials created by a faculty member in developing their online course shell. Most of the online faculty teaching in the LACCD, to my knowledge, do not accept the "substantial support" provisions of Article 40/41 because they do not want to give up their "ownership rights" of their course shell, so they can be free to use their course materials to teach online at other colleges, or just because they want to maintain their own "copyright" to their own course materials, and do not want to sell them to the College for a small stipend of $1,000 as they spend considerable time developing and improving their online course materials.
2. If the College wanted to acquire copyright ownership to a faculty's online course, then an agreement must be reached as to a stipend or other source of compensation as detailed in Article 41. If the College did pay for a faculty member to change platforms from etudes ng over to moodle or coursecompass, then the College would own the copyright to the faculty website and materials, and the faculty could not use the materials to teach at other colleges.
3. Nothing in Article 40 or 41 state a requirement on the College to pay a stipend when the College decides to add new portrals, phase out old portals, or the li8ke.
That is my reading of the plain language of Article 40 and Article 41.
Please let me know if that is your reading.
I talked with Alma about sitting down with DE to discuss the pending decision to phase out etudes ng, and she is open to do so at our earliest convenience.
again let me know your thoughts on the matter.
Below is a list of the faculty who would be required to change over from Etudes NG and what they teach (total 13 classes)
1. Vilma Bernal - Bus 1, Management 2,13,33 and Marketing 21 (5 classes)
2. Richard Sennet - History 1 (1 class)
3. Som Chounlomountry -Pol 1 and 7 ( 2 classes)
4. Kurt Struwe - FSM 50 & 100 (2 classes)
5. Said Hussain - Pol 1 (1 class)
6. Jeremy Hight - English 101 Pace (1 class)
7. Wakana Saeki - Bio33 (1 class) - I believe that the College paid a stipend to Wakana to develop her Bio 33, and if the College wanted to maintain its copyright ownership to her class materials, then under Article 40/41, a new stipend arrangement would be required. However, I do not read that the College would be required to pay for the conversion of Bio 33 to moodle or coursecompass if the College does not want to continue copyright ownership of her class materials.
Again let me know your thoughts, and let me know some dates that are good to sit down and discuss all of this with Alma.
By the way, the decision to terminate etudes ng is probably a "Budge Committee" decision, and we may want to make a presentation to Budget for their consideration. However, since it is also an Academic decision, I think it is good to first sit down with Alma.
David.