ticker does not work properly installed in a site

If the taxonomy_ticker module is installed into a site (sites/sitename/modules/taxonomy_ticker) then you get a bunch of log messages about taxonomy_ticker.css and taxonomy_ticker.js not being found in the log; the key is that it's looking for /modules/taxonomy_ticker/filename which is not what it should be doing - although I have no idea personally how modules get their paths out so they can include files with them. Nonetheless it does not work properly if not installed for the entire installation (which is something I never want to do, because of the way drupal handles updates - only the default modules will ever be installed for the entire drupal install.)