S.11(2) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, states that where a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, or a film, is made by an employee in the course of his employment, his employer is the first owner of any copyright in the work subject to any agreement to the contrary.
Thus, the principal questions determining copyright ownership of material created by an employee in the course of an employer-employee relationship are:
1) was the copyright work created by the employee in the course of his/her employment?
2) were there any agreements governing the copyright ownership of any employee created copyright materials?
Useful guidance on copyright ownership of material created by FE and HE staff in the course of employment is available in the 'Intellectual Property Rights Overview' publication by JISC Legal available at http://www.jisclegal.ac.uk/ipr/IntellectualProperty.htm which states:
"Ownership of copyright by staff: Copyright ownership of works created by FE and HE staff is principally dependent on the question whether the creation of the work was within the scope of his/her job specification. The rule applies irrespective of the question whether the staff had used the employer’s resources to produce the work and whether the work in question was produced during the office hours of the staff."
Based on the above, if the material was developed by the employee in the employee's own time and was not a part of the job duty/responsibility of the employee, the employee would own copyright in it.
With regard to protection of the material in countries outside the UK, the basic principle of UK copyright law is that copyright protection is automatic and that there is no need to register a work in order to copyright it. Therefore, the teaching programme would be copyright protected once it was expressed in a material form (in writing/printed format). However, it is advisable to mark the teaching programme with the '©' symbol, and with the name of the copyright owner and the month and year of its creation/publication. This would serve as a note to others regarding the year in which the term of protection began and would indicate to them the person to be approached in case they need permission to use the work.