To store copyrighted material on the Virginia Tech WWW we have to available options and a third viable one. The best place to store the material is on http://courseware.vt.edu. This server has the same status as the ereserve system used to have. The next option of course is to use the ereserve system. The server that it is on is not going to be in use for very much longer. The ereserve appearance and front end will be ported to courseware, thus it is better to use courseware. It will save time transferring items later. The third option is to store materials on a local server, but if they are copyrighted then they must be password protected.
A further understanding of copyright at Virginia Tech can be found at the Scholarly Communicaiton project http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/copyright/
Intellectual Property
The question of intellectual property is a question of ownership primarily. "Who owns the material produced and distributed on the Virginia Tech WWW for classes?", is the question. It relies partially on prior established copyright, and secondarily on the idea
of work for hire. The definitions of these terms are covered on the copyright page mentioned above. However, it is also important to be familiar with the Virginia Tech policy on Intellectual Property. It is on the policy webpages at http://www.vt.edu/vt97/misc/policies/policymemo/ppm73.html in its early version and http://www.vt.edu/vt97/misc/policies/policymemo/ppm121.html in its later version.
Basically, Virginia Tech, or the department in which you teach the course for may have a claim to the course, if the course was developed with a grant, or paid for in some way by Virginia Tech.