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Faculty teaching DE classes may have questions about issues like IP and class sizes. This page addresses these with LATTC-specific guidance.

Intellectual Property

Faculty often invest considerable time in developing custom class materials for classes - especially online and hybrid classes. As such, the question of intellectual property ownership of those materials sometimes arises. LATTC's AP 3715 is the definitive word on this, and you are encouraged to review it thoroughly. From that document, the key statement is:

Employee Intellectual Property Rights

A District employee who is the creator of an academic work in his/her field of expertise owns the copyright in that work. Academic works include textbooks, lecture notes and other course materials, literary works, artistic works, musical works, architectural works and software produced with no more than nominal or incidental use of the District’s resources. Academic works described in this paragraph are owned by the employee even though such works may have been developed within the employee’s scope of employment.

Intellectual property unrelated to an individual's employment responsibilities at the District, and that is developed on an individual's own time and without the District’s support or use of District facilities is the exclusive property of the creator and the District has no interest in any such property and holds no claim to any profits resulting from such intellectual property.

With that said, faculty are always encouraged to consider sharing with other faculty. Especially when faculty are assigned to teach an online or hybrid class for the first time, many faculty will provide access to previous versions of the course in Canvas. Given the IP rules in place at LATTC described above, it's very important to be clear in such circumstances about what rights you are - or are not - transferring to other faculty when sharing course materials. Faculty are encouraged to consider using Creative Commons licensing when sharing original work.

Class Sizes

Our Collective Bargaining Agreement specifies in Article 40 that online classes should be capped at 40 students. Instructors who agree to teach a class with a larger capacity of 50 or more are entitled to a "large class stipend." This must be agreed upon before the class is scheduled in PeopleSoft.