• Recognize Copyright laws and USF Policy for using copyrighted materials in courses
• Recognize exceptions to copyright policies
• Understand the TEACH act and how it pertains to distance learning courses
• Follow USF guidelines for e-reserve articles
• Identify list of available copyright free image resources
• Using Baruch’s interactive learning guide and Checklist for Fair Use make decisions about use of copyrighted materials for your lesson
• Given a scenario, identify if copyright violations are taking place.
  

Perhaps you are designing a course and want to use materials that you have not developed. As a first time online instructor, you have analyzed what course materials you have to create from scratch and identified a few materials that have already been developed and ready to use. How do you know that these existing materials can be used in your course? Who is the rightful owner and how can you seek permission? Are there copyright laws and policies that you should be aware of? This module has been developed to explain Federal laws and USF copyright policy, in order to provide basic instructions to those wanting to use existing resources in online courses.

Copyright laws and policy are put in place to protect the owners of intellectual property. Many materials like literary, musical, and graphic works are protected by state and federal laws. On a more local level policy dictates the actions of individuals. Universities like USF have their own copyright policies. Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with USF Copyright Policy found at: http://usfweb2.usf.edu/usfgc/gc_pp/GENADM/Gc105.htm

Before using copyrighted materials in courses, USF policy often requires faculty staff and students to obtain the permission of copyright owners and it is best to seek permission to copyrighted works. However there is a “Fair Use” exemption which allows faculty to use limited portions of copyrighted material, without requiring permission for non-profit educational purposes.

The TEACH Act allows faculty to use copyrighted materials (while teaching) when that teaching is then transmitted via the Internet or video. However, to the extent possible, those materials must not be distributed in a way which the learner is able to keep those materials. For instance it would be fine to display a streaming video, but you should not allow the student to receive that copyrighted video in a format, that the students could then redistribute.

For a detailed explanation of USF Copyright Policy, review a presentation that provides an overview of copyright laws, Fair use, TEACH act etc.

Faculty often want to distribute articles or other electronic documents to their online students. It’s important to note that you need to remain in compliance with federal copyright laws. Posting an electronic document on a website is technically republishing that document. However since Blackboard is a secure website, only your registered students will be able to access those documents, thus you should remain in compliance with copyright laws, if you post your materials within your course website.

To help you post documents in your course, the USF library offers a document delivery services called E-Reserve. The e-reserve is like it’s more traditional cousin, book reserve; the difference being that when you request an article to be placed on electronic reserve, it will be scanned and placed within your Blackboard Content Collection area. Students can access electronic course materials right from within the Blackboard course website. Faculty and instructors can use this form to request the library to place e-reserve materials in the Content Collection segment of MyUSF (Blackboard)

http://www.lib.usf.edu/index.cfm?Pg=ReserveRequestElectronicChangeInProcess

While you may be tempted to right-click and save an image from a web page, this may be violating copyright laws. If you need copyright free graphics, you should use websites that have been built for that purpose. These are image archives that house copyright free images that may be just what you are looking for. Try:

Public Health Image Library
http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/home.asp

Microsoft Clip Art
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/clipart/default.aspx

Getty Images
(USF Health subscription, check with ETA Office for log in details)

This unit has covered the Copyright laws and policy in use here at the University of South Florida. We discussed USF copyright policy, the “fair use” exemption to U.S. copyright law, and the TEACH ACT.

Now as an activity please take the time to visit Baruch’s interactive learning guide
(make sure to visit “Copyright Metro” within this site). This interactive website will help you reflect on what have learned in this unit.