Approved by the:

University Senate November 16, 2000 Administration January 19, 2001 Board of Regents - no action required

No member of the instructional staff of the University shall personally profit from the assignment of materials, or assignment of the venue of purchase of materials, to students in classes or any other instructional setting at the University without proper administrative approval.

The administration shall implement this policy by whatever reasonable means are possible. It is expected that the normal approval required will be by the department or the college.

Following is the comment that was included with the policy when it was approved by the University Senate:

The Senate Committee on Educational Policy (SCEP) was recently made aware of an email message distributed to a number of faculty members inviting them to recommend books in their courses for sale through a commercial entity. In return for recommending and obtaining sales the faculty member received a commission. This seemed to be unethical to the members of SCEP and to a number of other faculty who communicated their views to SCEP.

In the course of considering the matter, SCEP was also made aware of an existing administrative policy, dating from 1991, that forbids instructors from assigning materials in a course of which they are the author and from which they receive royalties or other income without the authorization of the department chair or dean. SCEP suspects that few faculty are aware of the existence of this policy.

At the same time, SCEP (and the University, certainly) encourages faculty authorship of instructional materials and does not discourage the use of such materials in courses in the faculty member's department. However, every academic unit should ensure that instructional materials are selected on their academic merit and also ensure that there is no significant conflict of interest or appearance of conflict of interest in the selection of such materials. It is entirely appropriate for a faculty member/instructor to assign materials that he or she has written: they may be the most appropriate materials for that class and instructor. This policy provides only that the individual should not personally profit from the assignment of such material without appropriate departmental approval.

Many faculty find it appropriate to donate an amount similar to the royalties generated by the usage of their own students back to their department, college or the University for purposes that support student learning.