[game_edu] Student IP for coursework

[Ira Fay]

I just put this together for my current game dev course, where everyone in
the class is going to work together to design, develop, and publish a game
in a single semester:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bcptWXmZuuhXZkvoe7y56CyS19vhZZOhFMwutg6oduk

I hope this is useful to someone!

Ira

On Fri, Aug 25, 2017 at 12:39 AM, Ian Schreiber via game_edu <
game_edu at igda.org> wrote:

> Er, that was SUPPOSED to be off-list, let's all just forget that happened.
>
> - Ian
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Ian Schreiber via game_edu <game_edu at igda.org>
> *To:* IGDA Game Education Listserv <game_edu at igda.org>
> *Cc:* Ian Schreiber <ai864 at yahoo.com>
> *Sent:* Friday, August 25, 2017, 12:35:47 AM EDT
> *Subject:* Re: [game_edu] Student IP for coursework
>
> Hi Tanja,
>
> Writing you off-list, I'm curious if you'd be willing to share your
> contract template, or if that's more of a trade secret of your school. (The
> legal department at my school is drafting something similar at my request,
> but it'd be instructive for me to compare.)
>
> Thanks,
> - Ian
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Välisalo, Tanja <tanja.valisalo at jyu.fi>
> *To:* Jose P Zagal <jose.zagal at utah.edu>; IGDA Game Education Listserv <
> game_edu at igda.org>
> *Sent:* Thursday, August 24, 2017, 12:14:13 PM EDT
> *Subject:* Re: [game_edu] Student IP for coursework
>
> Hi,
> I teach a game project course at the University of Jyväskylä with my
> colleague, and our approach has been to
>
>   - recommend students agree on these matters in the project group, like
> Jose mentioned, preferably right at the beginning of the course,
>   - give students the basics of IP legislation, so they get an idea on
> what their rights and limitations are,
>   - give the students a template for a written contract, and
>   - offer to comment on their finished contracts.
>
> If people outside the course contribute to the project, I have urged the
> students to draw up a contract with them as well.
>
> About 95% all of our student groups in the last 5 years have written and
> signed an agreement. In practice, some have decided that publication and/or
> commercialization of the game has to be agreed upon by everyone, some have
> decided that a majority vote is enough, some have even agreed on precise
> percentages of future profits. So it is really up to the students! In the
> end, I think discussing these things and understanding the different
> possibilities is good practice for students, even if they never end up
> taking the project further.
>
> We usually also ask the students for the right to use their game, or
> video/images of gameplay in different public events, PR material etc.
>
>
>
> Tanja Välisalo
> University Teacher
> Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
> University of Jyväskylä
>
> ------------------------------
> *Lähettäjä:* game_edu [game_edu-bounces at igda.org] käyttäjän Jose P Zagal [
> jose.zagal at utah.edu] puolesta
> *Lähetetty:* 24. elokuuta 2017 18:26
> *Vastaanottaja:* IGDA Game Education Listserv
> *Aihe:* Re: [game_edu] Student IP for coursework
>
> My advice is that institutions (and faculty) should stay as far away as
> possible from owning or asserting any sort of IP rights over student work.
> At most, try to assert the right to use students work for promotional and
> educational purposes (e.g. we want to show your game at our booth, or have
> screenshots on our website). I also don't think it's our job to get
> directly  involved deciding credit and ownership among students. That being
> said, I always strongly recommend that students discuss among themselves
> and figure out what they want to do BEFORE they've done anything - and here
> is where we (faculty) can provide input and advice including guidelines for
> using assets made by others, tools with non-commercial licenses, etc. In
> other words, don't own anything, it's on the students to figure it out
> (with your help), and yes, there will be a lot of missed
> opportunities by students (e.g. team was never able to agree on something,
> so publisher gives up).
>
> Jose
>
>
> On 8/24/2017 7:38 AM, Ian Schreiber via game_edu wrote:
>
> Question for those of you who teach courses that involve the creation of
> games that may go on to be commercialized, submitted to festivals, or
> similar (e.g. capstone courses):
>
> What do you do, if anything, involving student ownership of IP? Do you
> have them sign a contract as part of the syllabus (and if so, what's in the
> contract and how did you put it together)? How do you handle cases where
> some of the student team might want to take the game forward and others
> would not? How do you deal with crediting and ownership in the case of
> students who are low performers, or who are late adds or late drops (or who
> contribute to the project peripherally even though they're not taking the
> course, e.g. a student whose roommate provides some art on their own time)?
> And... how much of this is covered by university or department policy, vs.
> how much is entirely up to you as the instructor?
>
> Just at my own institution it seems like there's no standard, every
> professor handles this differently, so I'm interested to hear what others
> have done in this space.
>
> - Ian
>
>
> --
> José P. Zagal
> Entertainment Arts & Engineering
> University of Utahjose.zagal at utah.edu
> @JoseZagal
> https://www.eng.utah.edu/~zagal/
>
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