In a different group Joe Ugoretz, @jugoretz, posted last week about the pretty awful sounding terms of use for Blackboard Course Sites. For those of you who are unaware Bb Course Sites ( https://www.coursesites.com ) is basically Blackboard 9.1 with the Wimba and Elluminate tools in online form. Any faculty member can sign up for free. But in doing so you have to accept their terms of use.

Those terms had things in it like giving ownership of all materials uploaded to Blackboard, their right to terminate sites inactive for 60 days, and other gems.

To quote Joe “I’m not a lawyer–I may be reading too much into this–but I think I would want all of this cleared up–and probably eliminated–before I would recommend that anyone use this service.” Agreed.

Well it appears that Blackboard has been listening. I has previously signed up for Course Sites to start looking at what it is like and this week I got an email from Jarl Jonas, Senior Program Manager for Course Sites. He said they’ve listened to criticism and revised their Terms of Use. The key point is that they now explicitly write that content creators retain ownership of their material. I’ll close with a long quote from that email (after the line).

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In an attempt to be as responsive as possible to client feedback received thus far, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve revised the CourseSites Terms of Use (TOU) to address the key areas of concern listed below. Please note that there is no need to accept the TOU once again, as the TOU state, “By accessing, browsing, and using the Blackboard services, you accept, without limitation or qualification, these TOU. If you do not wish to be bound by these TOU, you may not access or use CourseSites.”

• Advertising (Section: 1. The CourseSites Service): It is not Blackboard’s intention to include advertising in CourseSites to support the service or generate revenue at this time. We are committed to providing a no cost online course creation service free from advertising for as long as possible. As such, we’ve revised the Terms of Use to eliminate this statement.

• User Content Ownership (4. User Content): Regarding our license to users’ content, as per the Terms of Use, “Any Content that you upload into or otherwise make available (“User Content”) into the Service is and remains your sole property or the property of your licensors.“ Blackboard is not interested in obtaining ownership to instructors’ materials for its own use or distribution. We believe highly that the full copyright should remain with the rightful owner of the content. Blackboard requires a license to the users’ content so that the CourseSites staff and support representatives can view the content freely and duplicate as necessary to diagnose causes and rectify issues as they arise without disrupting active sessions. To demonstrate our commitment to content ownership, we’ve revised the Terms of Use to more clearly state our intentions.

• Who Can Use CourseSites (7. Conduct): We’ve further clarified who is permitted to use CourseSites and have explicitly stated that, “With the exception of general tuition for student course enrollment in a non-profit institution, you may not charge any fees to any party for their use of your CourseSite.”

In a different group Joe Ugoretz, @jugoretz, posted last week about the pretty awful sounding terms of use for Blackboard Course Sites. For those of you who are unaware Bb Course Sites ( https://www.coursesites.com ) is basically Blackboard 9.1 with the Wimba and Elluminate tools in online form. Any faculty member can sign up for free. But in doing so you have to accept their terms of use.

Those terms had things in it like giving ownership of all materials uploaded to Blackboard, their right to terminate sites inactive for 60 days, and other gems.

To quote Joe “I’m not a lawyer–I may be reading too much into this–but I think I would want all of this cleared up–and probably eliminated–before I would recommend that anyone use this service.” Agreed.

Well it appears that Blackboard has been listening. I has previously signed up for Course Sites to start looking at what it is like and this week I got an email from Jarl Jonas, Senior Program Manager for Course Sites. He said they’ve listened to criticism and revised their Terms of Use. The key point is that they now explicitly write that content creators retain ownership of their material. I’ll close with a long quote from that email (after the line).

---

In an attempt to be as responsive as possible to client feedback received thus far, I’m pleased to announce that we’ve revised the CourseSites Terms of Use (TOU) to address the key areas of concern listed below. Please note that there is no need to accept the TOU once again, as the TOU state, “By accessing, browsing, and using the Blackboard services, you accept, without limitation or qualification, these TOU. If you do not wish to be bound by these TOU, you may not access or use CourseSites.”

• Advertising (Section: 1. The CourseSites Service): It is not Blackboard’s intention to include advertising in CourseSites to support the service or generate revenue at this time. We are committed to providing a no cost online course creation service free from advertising for as long as possible. As such, we’ve revised the Terms of Use to eliminate this statement.

• User Content Ownership (4. User Content): Regarding our license to users’ content, as per the Terms of Use, “Any Content that you upload into or otherwise make available (“User Content”) into the Service is and remains your sole property or the property of your licensors.“ Blackboard is not interested in obtaining ownership to instructors’ materials for its own use or distribution. We believe highly that the full copyright should remain with the rightful owner of the content. Blackboard requires a license to the users’ content so that the CourseSites staff and support representatives can view the content freely and duplicate as necessary to diagnose causes and rectify issues as they arise without disrupting active sessions. To demonstrate our commitment to content ownership, we’ve revised the Terms of Use to more clearly state our intentions.

• Who Can Use CourseSites (7. Conduct): We’ve further clarified who is permitted to use CourseSites and have explicitly stated that, “With the exception of general tuition for student course enrollment in a non-profit institution, you may not charge any fees to any party for their use of your CourseSite.”

[Joseph Ugoretz]

Definitely offers some reassurance!

Here’s what they say about ownership in the new TOU:

“Any Content that you upload into or otherwise make available (“User Content”) into the Service is and remains your sole property or the property of your licensors. By uploading or otherwise making available any User Content, you automatically grant and/or warrant that the owner has granted Blackboard, the perpetual royalty-free, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, distribute, perform, display, and transmit the User Content through the Service to provide the Service and/or to enable support representatives and administrative staff to assist users if and when issues arise. On occasion, Blackboard may ask for your written permission to use User Content, courses, designs and customizations for promotional and/or marketing purposes.”

So they may still want to use your work–but at least now they say they’ll ask for written permission. I do notice that they don’t say that they won’t go ahead and use it if you don’t grant permission…but I’m not one to automatically attribute evil motives. I think this would be reassurement enough for me.

[Helen Keier]

Perhaps we should run the TOU by CUNY Legal for an opinion before recommending use of the site?