Intellectual Property and Copyrights Policy


Policy Title: Intellectual Property and Copyrights Policy
Policy Number: ACA.200.14
Policy Owner: Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
Responsible Office: Provost’s Office
Revision Date: 04/28/2020

  1. Purpose and Scope

The Intellectual Property and Copyrights Policy is established to describe the guidelines and procedures to enable an environment that will encourage creativity and innovation, to recognize and protect the intellectual property rights of faculty, staff, students, and the university. The policy applies to all University faculty, staff, and students, employees and students.

  1. Policy

North American University holds the copyright to all course materials including videos, webinar recordings, discussion questions, assignments, articles, lecture notes, and syllabi. NAU has the right to use and import course materials to any other course. Using online course shells out of NAU requires Provost’s approval.

North American University reserves the right to affirm ownership of any intellectual property created under any of the following circumstances:

  • Works created/uploaded by NAU faculty
  • Works created with significant use of university facilities, resources, technical
  • support or financial support.
  • Works created as a result of external funding.
  • Funding an employee or student to develop the material.
  • All student works

North American University has ownership of all student course work, such as assignments, homework, projects, videos, and articles.

Course instructors have the responsibility to properly use copyrighted material and protect intellectual property rights for their courses. If any course material has a third-party copyright, such as book publisher’s presentations and quizzes, then a copyright notice is required to protect and recognize authorship and the integrity of the work.

Copyright notice is required to protect and recognize authorship and the integrity of the work. A copyright notice must be affixed to the intellectual property and should contain:

  • the word “copyright”
  • a “c” in a circle (©)
  • the date of publication, and
  • the name of either the author or the owner of all the copyright rights in the published work.

Any disagreements regarding the ownership of the intellectual property will be resolved by the Provost.

  1. Who Should Read This Policy
  • Students
  • Faculty
  1. Related Documents and References
  1. History
  • Revision Date: 10/01/2018
  • Revision Date: 9/5/2017