The default: you own your coursework
Work you create for a class as part of normal instruction — a paper, a design, a project, code — is generally yours. The university has a license to keep and display work for educational and accreditation purposes (a capstone in a showcase, a portfolio in an accreditation review), but ownership stays with you unless you signed something that says otherwise.
Sponsored and funded projects are different
When an outside company sponsors your capstone or a grant funds your research, an agreement signed before the work starts sets the IP terms — sometimes the sponsor owns the result, sometimes it is shared, sometimes background IP stays with the university and the sponsor gets a license. Read what you sign. If nobody put an agreement in front of you and the project has a sponsor, ask.
Using university resources
If you develop something using significant university resources beyond ordinary classroom use — specialized equipment, a paid research role, staff time — the university's IP policy may give it an ownership interest. The line is "significant use," not "I printed it in the library." Technology Transfer can tell you where a specific project falls.
If you think you have something valuable
Before you present it publicly, post it online, or enter it in a competition, talk to Technology Transfer — a public disclosure can start clocks that limit patent options later. They handle invention disclosures, evaluate commercial potential, and can help with provisional protection. This is free advice and it is better sought early.
Copyright basics for your work
Your original writing, images, code, and designs are protected by copyright automatically when you create them; registration adds enforcement options. Conversely, using others' copyrighted material in your work (images, music, code, text) needs permission or a genuine fair-use or license basis — the library runs a workshop on this for student projects.
Team projects
On a team, discuss ownership and credit up front, put it in your team agreement, and revisit it if the project turns out to have value. Joint work has joint owners by default, which gets complicated fast if one person later wants to commercialize it alone.
Where to get help
Technology Transfer for inventions and commercial potential, the library for copyright and fair use, Student Legal Services for a contract you are being asked to sign, and your faculty mentor for norms in your field.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, person, building, phone number and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.