On the plus side, instructors say that working with teams makes them better teachers, and that different perspectives enhance their courses. In a classroom setting, students still tend to view the instructor as the 'knowledge giver' rather than the facilitator. On the negative side, these kinds of courses cost more to produce, without necessarily yielding greater economies of scale. Administrators who hope to add more students to online courses to offset their costs are disappointed to learn that the courses are as much or more work for the professor to teach than a classroom-based course. Using teams to produce online courses also raises new problems of content ownership.
Every institution has a different policy.
A professor at the University of Missouri, for example, may own all content for a course and may take it with her when she leaves. A professor at Penn State, on the other hand, will face varying levels of ownership rights, depending on the nature of the course and who had a hand in producing it.