Efficient use of microcomputers and other computing technology by IANR students and staff, and by citizens of Nebraska, will require special emphasis on software development and evaluation in the years ahead.

IANR should take a leadership role in evaluating, selecting, and disseminating information about software and systems to all county, district, and department offices for word processing, accounting, data base management, electronic communication, and other office automation applications.

Software development for agriculture and home economics applications is the responsibility of the subject-matter departments. IANR should not have a major role in evaluating software developed in the private sector for use by agriculture and home economics clients. However, guidelines or criteria for the evaluation of software should be developed by faculty in their areas of specialization.

Software ownership depends on the commissioning of the work and the resources used to create the software. Software can be owned by a staff member if the work was done on his or her own time using personal resources.

Most software developed by IANR teaching, research, and extension staff will fall in the category of "work for hire" and copyright and ownership will be held by the University of Nebraska. Work for hire is defined as a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment or a work specially ordered or commissioned.

All documented software developed and released by IANR should be copyrighted. The Copyright Act requires that the copyright notice must be affixed to any copyrightable work prior to publication.

Proper documentation within the software code and supplementary literature in a standardized format are essential for software review, implementation, use, maintenance, and assistance to authors and users. Documentation for general-use (Class A) software copyrighted and released by IANR will include user manuals, discipline-oriented technical information, and programming documentation to facilitate maintenance.

The development of software to apply computer-based problem solutions is a creative activity which should be evaluated by a peer-review process similar to that used for other scientific publications. A review within IANR must be completed before submission of the technical information to an appropriate journal and before the code can be licensed for distribution. Upon successful review, the software should be submitted for copyright.

An individual effort to create and develop computer software as part of his or her teaching/research/extension assignment should be considered in promotion, tenure, and merit salary adjustment decisions along with other, more traditional creative activities.

When applications software has been documented, peer-reviewed, copyrighted and is ready for release, it should be distributed and shared both within IANR and, as appropriate, with external users. The decision to release software for external use should be made by the Dean and/or Director (or his designee) of the Division in which the development and/or application took place.

All fully-documented software released by IANR for general use (Class A software) will be copied, printed, inventoried and distributed by the Publications Section of the Department of Agricultural Communications. Limited access, specialized software (Class B software) will be disseminated and supported by the academic department or unit that produced it.

Software release and distribution by IANR carries with it the responsibility for user support and training. IANR staff must be informed of the potential uses of new software. Public clientele will require assistance in applying the software to their own agriculture or home economics problems. Software should not be released if the author(s) and the subject matter department(s) are not willing to support the end users.

For software developed by IANR staff, IANR may enter into a licensing agreement for the use or distribution of Class A software. The license agreement should be negotiated with the interested party by the Dean and/or Director (or his designee) of the Division that produced the software, and the software author(s). The division of royalties will be two-thirds to the author(s) and one-third to the administrative unit(s) of the authors after any direct expenses associated with the licensing agreement have been deducted.