The intent is that if academic issues come up to the Council, the Council would send them to the Alliance Mr. Cunningham, from United Academics, said from the union perspective, systemwide policies could have impact on workload, compensation and intellectual properties which are collective bargaining issues. At public forum yesterday at UAF, the general consensus was that considerable more time is spent by faculty on distance education courses than regular courses. The rest do little or none. This has been the status for ten to fifteen years. But there has been an impact with advancing technology.
Most courses are audioconference.
When we get into web delivery, we bring another set of problems, one of which is intellectual property rights. There are other factors in the administrative area like how is the money and credit hours divided. This affects campus reporting and ultimately the faculty members portfolios. These issues have just been addressed by the United Academics Labor Management Committee which has met six times. All these things were on the agenda and have been covered.