Are there universities that consider it academic misconduct for students to publish material created by faculty?
Since you asked for norms at other schools, here is one data point: UC Berkeley has an explicit policy on this subject. At UC Berkeley, instructors own the copyright on their course materials and are allowed to specify the policy on dissemination. In additional, dissemination for a commercial purpose is prohibited without express consent of the instructor. If instructors specify a policy, students who violate this policy can be punished for academic misconduct -- and this is stated explicitly in the UC Berkeley policies.
In more detail, UC Berkeley's policy on Course Note-Taking and Materials states:
Individual instructors retain copyrights to [...] class materials they create. Instructors may permit, limit, or prohibit the [..] further distribution of class materials created by an instructor (class notes, recordings, exams, and class materials, collectively referred to as “Class Materials”). Instructors are encouraged to clearly communicate their preferences on recording and sharing Class Materials in their syllabi. [...]
Unauthorized use of Class Materials may subject an individual to legal proceedings brought by the instructor as well as disciplinary and legal proceedings by the University. [...]
Thus, if an instructor states in the syllabus that dissemination of exams is not allowed, then a student who violates that restriction may be disciplined by the University for academic misconduct. On the other hand, if the instructor does not state any policy, and the students shares the exam with others (for non-commercial purposes), there is no violation of University academic misconduct rules, though there might well be a violation of copyright law.
Also, UC Berkeley's Code of Student Conduct has a section that deals specifically with this subject. It states:
102.23 Course Materials
Selling, preparing, or distributing for any commercial purpose course lecture notes or video or audio recordings of any course unless authorized by the University in advance and explicitly permitted by the course instructor in writing. The unauthorized sale or commercial distribution of course notes or recordings by a student is a violation of these Policies whether or not it was the student or someone else who prepared the notes or recordings.
Copying for any commercial purpose handouts, readers or other course materials provided by an instructor as part of a University of California course unless authorized by the University in advance and explicitly permitted by the course instructor or the copyright holder in writing (if the instructor is not the copyright holder).
Exams count as course materials and thus are covered by this policy.
Personal opinion: I think sites like CourseHero are scummy, sleazy sites: the worst of the worst. They require students to submit additional course materials to view the ones that are on record there, and they make no attempt to validate that students have permission to share those course materials; indeed, they have every incentive not to validate whether the student has authorization, and every incentive to encourage unauthorized uploading. Thus, their business model is based upon encouraging students to share stuff they might not have permission to -- and they profit off of this. I find this business practice reprehensible and worth of condemnation.
However... it is a separate question whether student use of those sites constitutes academic misconduct. Personally, I would say that students have a due process right to be informed of their responsibilities, and to only be published for actions that are a clear violation of published policies. Therefore, I believe it is the instructors' responsibility to establish clear policies -- either on a course-by-course basis, on course syllabi, or else by adopting clear policies at the campus level. In the absence of such policies, I would be very hesitant to punish students who shared exams with others. That does not feel fair to me.
First define the problem. "It feels wrong" isn't really an actionable reason right? Is the problem that the student published the exam with answers? Is the problem that the student removed the exam with answers when she/he was expected to return it to the instructor? Is the problem that the student published the exam with answers on a 'cheater' website?
To narrow this down a bit it might be useful to ask yourself and the professor: "Would your feelings be different if the student published the exam with answers on their own website?" As a student if an instructor returned an exam to me and I felt the information was worthwhile(aka not a 'multiple choice') I certainly published my exams, projects and some assignments on my personal website. I used this as a resource when I was tutoring students in the course and found it very useful.
If the student 'stole' the exam, by which I mean they took the exam and their answers when the instructor was expecting the exam to be returned, then you are in a different ballpark. Then you have something actionable but...
Let's step back a moment to something you yourself said: "I am sure there are fat binders in fraternity and sorority houses with that material."
This is absolutely the case and no matter what you or any of the other professors does this will continue to be the case. The question then becomes - is it fair to non-Greek students who don't have access to these binders? What do you gain by trying to prevent the 'publication' of exams?
I've heard of a couple of instructors who reuse the same exam year after year. I understand the rigors of teaching, I understand it can be hard to come up with new questions/new assignments/new exams every term. But, that being said, using the same exam over and over is just plain laziness. Even changing the order of the questions bypasses that issue - and if students are memorizing the 'correct' answer to a general question(instead of a multiple choice value or a number value) then aren't they essentially studying?
In the end the question needs to be asked - WHY is it important than exams and their answers not be published? There are only a few answers to that and most of them are going to be fairly flimsy.
A bit of an Anecdote here about this. One of the most challenging instructors/courses during my undergraduate career was with an instructor that had every single exam he had given(since he started keeping copies in the 1980s) put up on his website. A handful had partially worked out answers / solutions. Students didn't even bother looking for the 'cheating' websites for these exams because they were on his website(sans answers of course) and because the exams showed that, although they were great for studying and practice, memorizing past exams was going to be completely worthless. If I were a professor at the moment I would probably take example from this - I would put all the exams(and probably homeworks) online. Drown them in information. All the sudden there's little value in going to a 'cheater' website about it.
It turns out that many years ago I created a website to publish exams for my undergrad school: http://www.annales-exam.com (in French).
It contains many computer science exams of classes in my undergrad school.
Ethically: I created this website because I was very annoyed by the fact that some students had access to the previous exams (e.g. the fat binders in the frats mentioned in the question), while other less connected, less GPA-focused, etc., did not. The website aimed at breaking this iniquitous situation.
Legally: Publishing exams of classes in my undergrad school is legal (by jurisprudence) due the status of my school (CNAM). Here is what the law in France says :
Le droit d’auteur protège toutes les créations originales. Mais on admet traditionnellement qu’aucun droit d’auteur ne peut être invoqué sur les textes législatifs et réglementaires, les rapports officiels ou les décisions de justice. La question de la protection des sujets d’examen par le droit d’auteur a été examinée par la jurisprudence. Le Tribunal de grande instance de Paris le 9 novembre 1988 et la Cour d’appel de Paris le 13 juin 1991 ont refusé la protection par le droit d’auteur à des Annales officielles du concours de l’Internat en médecine. Les sujets des épreuves, en permettant de connaître la pratique suivie, complètent et précisent les textes normatifs définissant les épreuves et sont donc des documents officiels dont la reproduction et la diffusion sont libres. L’accès aux sujets d’examen ne saurait être restreint par l’application des droits de propriété littéraire. Il faut donc considérer les sujets d’examen organisé par l’État comme des actes officiels et, à ce titre, non protégés par le droit d’auteur. Ce ne sont pas des œuvres protégées.
As a side story, the only feedback I received from the administrative folks in school was a legal threat due to the fact I had used the school logo on the website:
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: X [Cnam]
Date: 2013-02-25 8:46 GMT-05:00
Subject: Utilisation abusive de la marque Cnam
To: [email protected]Bonjour, Sur votre site http://www.annales-exam.com, vous faites, sans autorisation, une utilisation abusive de l'ancien logo du Cnam, que vous avez, de plus, déformé. Pour toutes ces raisons, je vous demande de retirer au plus vite cette image, avant que le contentieux soit transmis à notre service juridique.
Cordialement,
Conservatoire national des arts et métiers
Direction de la communication Communication Paris Cédex 03
No professor complained to me.