> They claim that university owns copyright to my code if I wrote it > for a school-related research project.
That's potentially correct. And the purpose of them signing the disclaimer is to release that interest so that only you need to sign the assignment. The other way of doing it would be for them to sign the assignment and you sign the disclaimer, which would essentially acknowlege that they own the copright. But because of of you have a potential interest in the copyright, both of you need to sign something. > However, since I'm an undergraduate and thus do not have an advisor, > nobody in the campus knows me well enough to prove that it's not the case. The purpose of having both of you sign is so that there's no potential issue going forward where they might later assert that claim. That way, we don't ever need to decide who currently owns the copyright.
