Page 102 - Composition in Convergence The Impact of New Media On

WHO OWNS THE WORDS? 71

versities, and if students depend on a non-university-based internet
service provider (ISP) to access these sites. In these situations,
Schlacter (1993) wrote, all intellectual property rights do revert to the
student, who can then challenge a professor's right to evaluate this
work, even if it is produced for a class.
The problem of assessing students' online work becomes equally
complicated if the writing classes use university equipment to com-
plete assignments. There is no guarantee the courts will side with the
college to allow students' work to be viewed and evaluated via the
Internet if a student wishes not to be included in the assessment ac-
tivities, as the University of Nebraska case illustrates ("Former U of
Nebraska Student," 1998). Moreover, there is no assurance the uni-
versity administration will support a writing instructor's practices
for evaluating student work produced online. In the University of
Nebraska case, the vice president and counsel for the institution
would not defend the English professor in question because it was
the university's position that UNL "considers creating the web pages
in question to have been outside the professor's responsibilities as a
faculty member" (p. A29).
Writing instructors must become far more aware of how intellec-
tual property and copyright laws connect to their students' online
work, because ownership issues can have a profound affect on writ-
ing assessment in the digital age. Although there appear to be no cur-
rent suits against colleges or universities with regard to the online
use of student texts, the situation could indeed arise again. Assessing
students' inter networked writing may become increasingly depend-
ent on legal decisions that are subject to multiple interpretations of
contemporary patent, copyright, and contract law—especially if the
assessments are connected to some type of benchmark or barrier
exam or if a grade is issued based on the evaluation. Therefore, pro-
grams considering adopting an information literacy component or
an online writing requirement should be in close consultation with
the institution's legal counsel to ensure that students, faculty, and
programs are protected and their rights are represented.
Assessment is not testing nor is it grading, many composition
scholars argue (Blair and Takayoshi, 1997; Huot, 2002; White,
1994; Zak and Weaver, 1998). Assessment is merely challenging
both the students' learning and the instructors' teaching methods.
That is why, technically, student ownership of the text can be consid-
ered irrelevant or at least less important at the classroom level than