My friend Dennis sent along this story from the CoE today:
U. of Iowa Writing Students Revolt Against a Plan They Say Would Give Away Their Work on the Web…
“At the center of the conflict is a routine form that students and their faculty advisers sign for depositing students’ theses with the Graduate College. Language added to the form this semester says that the University of Iowa Library will scan hard-copy theses and “make them open-access documents,” which it defines as freely available over the Internet and retrievable “via search engines such as Google.” It is not clear who authorized that clause.”
As a graduate of the UI’s non-fiction writing program, I guess I’m pretty ambivalent about this leap into the 21st Century by my alma mater. I understand the arguments being made, and I’m a bit uncomfortable equating a written work with, say, a drug developed at the UI (which, as far as I know, belongs to the UI). But should I be? I wish I knew more about the way patents and trademarks worked at the UI.
I was fairly happy with my thesis when I completed it, but it wasn’t all that I wanted it to be, and it was certainly not publishable in its submitted form (IMO). Here’s to stacking your review committee with friendly professors! On Iowa!