If the university claims ownership but licenses rights back to the academic – do the rights continue when they leave the university?

The term ‘‘education records’’ does not include, in the case of persons who are employed by an educational agency or institution but who are not in attendance at such agency or institution, records made and maintained in the normal course of business which relate exclusively to such person in that person’s capacity as an employee and are not available for use for any other purpose.

Finally, if the academic is the designated rightsholder and as such has asserted their moral rights in, say, a videoed performance, what happens when the university wants to make subsequent changes to it?

Many of these claim that "the answer to who owns the [intellectual] property depends on the condition in which it was produced" (Rhoades 1998). Loggie et al. (2006) suggests that those conditions might include whether the teaching materials were commissioned, whether the authors were compensated, and whether there was significant use of university resources in their creation. Monotti and Rickeston (2003) drew similar conclusions, with the addition that "the classification of the originator" and "the material in respect of which such claims were advanced" were also factors.

Authors are in the end as mobile as their works and will gravitate to institutions where online copyright issues are sensitively handled. What is needed is the transfer of sufficient rights to accommodate course management without sacrificing mobility and academic freedom.

No funds shall be made available under any applicable program to any educational agency or institution which has a policy or practice of permitting the release of education records (or personally identifiable information contained therein other than directory information) of students without the written consent of their parents to any individual, agency, or organization, other than to other school officials, including teachers within the educational institution or local educational agency, who have been determined by such agency or institution to have legitimate educational interests, including the educational interests of the child for whom consent would otherwise be required.

Academic employees rarely remain at one institution for the whole of their careers. Questions are therefore raised as to what happens to the teaching materials when the author is no longer at the university.

A student or a person applying for admission may waive his right of access to confidential statements, except that such waiver shall apply to recommendations only if the student is, upon request, notified of the names of all persons making confidential recommendations.

If the university claims ownership or at least refuses to permit an academic to take a copy with them, this might constitute a Restraint of Trade, invoking legislation that protects an individual’s rights to continue practising their trade when they move from one employer to another (McCann 2014).