Concordia class is given by dead professor
A Concordia student was shaken to find out that the professor with whom he’d been taking a course in art history had been dead for two years. The university hadn’t been clear that the prerecorded lectures were made by a faculty member who was no longer available.
The story was first covered by Slate then tweeted by Steve Faguy.
JaneyB 18:56 on 2021-01-31 Permalink
Oh wow. That story is going to go straight to the union. Yipes! For sure, there will be a lawsuit for copyright infringement against the university. The union (and my department) informed the profs to include an intellectual property clause in all their syllabi indicating that all their coursework remains their own. It’s also true that students retain copyright for all the work they hand in, even if it’s submitted electronically.
Incidentally, I’d be surprised if anyone (but the very time strapped) is interested in online courses in the future. The medium is so, so shitty – even live. Both students and faculty just hate it and students resent paying for it. Covid has set back MOOCs probably a generation. It’s something…but barely.
JaneyB 19:02 on 2021-01-31 Permalink
And…I’m reading the article more carefully. I think there might be a difference between deliberately developed online courses versus the general e-misery that we’re all in under covid. He might have signed something giving the university a right to use it. Also, as a tenured prof, he might be under different rules than part-time, temporary faculty (like me). I don’t think Concordia’s online offerings are especially successful so…small mercies. Still, the students should raise hell over this ultra low-effort offering by the university.
CE 22:34 on 2021-01-31 Permalink
I have a friend who is doing a few classes through TÉLUQ, which has been doing distance-ed since long before computers were in everyone’s house so they know what they’re doing. The experience he described didn’t sound so bad. At the beginning of the course, he received a big package in the mail with all this course work including work sheets, readings, and sample work. He would fill everything in based on his readings and research and mail it back. Other than research, I don’t think he really needed a computer. He could book a call with an adviser whenever he needed to get help. Compare that to what I’ve been hearing with online classes at normal universities (or the online classes they normally offer) and it seems to be night and day!
When I was studying at Concordia, they were always trying to get me to do online classes and I always refused, I’m glad I never did. Anyone I knew who took them (usually because they had to get some credit and couldn’t fit it in their schedule) always complained about how terrible the experience was.
Kate 09:33 on 2021-02-01 Permalink
JaneyB, it seems the lectures done by the Concordia prof were part of a planned collection of recorded lectures, so presumably the professor knew this and assented to it. But the university should not be claiming – even passively implying – that the course is taught by François‑Marc Gagnon.
I suppose the step from “professor does lectures, student work and questions are dealt with by TAs” to this is not a big one, but the union surely will have something to say about the promotion of courses as supposedly taught by people who are no longer with us. How could any lecturer get tenure if all the important teaching posts are held by the dead?