Faculty own their course materials, unless they choose to give them away. They do not need to give their course materials to the department, department head, or anyone else when someone new is assigned to teach a course that they taught previously. If faculty are offered a stipend to develop course materials (either for on-line or face-to-face delivery), the faculty member owns that material, unless they sign away those rights.

6.10.1 Unless otherwise negotiated, the faculty member or faculty body who develops course materials shall exercise control, including intellectual property rights, over the future use, modification, and distribution of such instructional material and shall determine whether the materials should be revised or withdrawn from use.

NMU’s policy regarding intellectual property is quite extensive. However, you can get a good overview of these policies from the NMU Grants and Research Office.