Student Rights in Intellectual Property
Personal Works
"Personal works are owned by the creator of the work."
Personal works are works "created by a(n)… student outside his or her scope of employment and without the use of college or university resources other than resources that are available to the public or resources for which the creator has paid the requisite fee to utilize." (Board Policy 3.26, Part 4, Subpart A.4)
"Intellectual property rights in personal works belong to the creator of the work." (Board Policy 3.26, Part 4, Subpart A.4)
The key here for those students employed by MnSCU or its institutions, is that the works must unquestionably be created outside the scope of employment if they are to be considered "personal works." For example, the teaching assistant in the music department who writes an article for "Rolling Stone" magazine outside of work hours; the computer lab student employee who helps her church's pre-school instructor prepare a powerpoint presentation for parents; and the student food service worker who writes recipes for a cookbook for college students living on a shoe string have all created personal works. All of the created works take advantage of the talents of the creators, and possibly even the creators' experience as student employees to some degree, but they are still personal works created outside the scope of employment.
