Notice Board

If you’re teaching this Summer or Fall, here’s a friendly reminder that the copyright team in the University Library can help you sort out copyright-aligned options for using copyrighted content as course materials or making particular films available to your students for online viewing.

The University's Copyright website offers a variety of tools, information, and copyright learning resources:

• Copyright Permissions Flow Chart: Outlines when permission is and is not needed.
• Guidelines for Copying under Fair Dealing: Summarizes what fair dealing is under the Canadian Copyright Act and kinds of copying that may be permissible without permission or fee payment. See also the FAQ on fair dealing.
• Readings in Moodle: An overview of your options for distributing copyrighted materials in Moodle. See also the page on reusing content from a prior semester.
• Readings on E-Reserve: Find out how to put readings and other items on E-Reserve as an alternative to Moodle.  In some cases, the Library may be able to acquire e-book excerpts you need via Interlibrary Loan for placement on E-Reserves, or you may send scans you have made to the copyright office for formatting. (Print Reserve remains available if you would like physical materials to be available for students to sign out).
• Articles in Library e-journals: Use the Copyright Permissions Look-up tool to determine, for example, whether you can download an article from a particular journal into Moodle, or share it with a colleague outside of ULethbridge.
• Chapters in Library e-books: Find out how many users may access an e-book (or an e-book chapter) concurrently.
• Harvard Business Review (HBR) articles: An FAQ on options for using “top 500” online HBR articles as assigned readings in your courses. 
• Brush up on your copyright knowledge: For background information on copyright, check out Copyright Q & As, a series of interactive copyright tutorials, or take a short Copyright Course in Moodle (self-registration, seven modules, each about four to six minutes long).

If your students will need online access to particular films for your course, please contact your subject librarian for assistance in determining whether streaming access is currently in place or can be obtained.  In the event that the Library owns the DVD but streaming access is unavailable for educational institutions, subject librarians (or faculty) can ask the University Copyright Advisor to assess whether the film could be made available on YuJa under the Copyright Act’s fair dealing provisions. Investigating streaming availability and converting a DVD to a streaming format are time-consuming, so please submit your online film viewing requests to your subject librarian well in advance of your desired screening date.

Please note the Copyright Act prohibits the circumvention of any technological protection measures that control access to works such as films on DVDs. This means we cannot use any of the programs that are widely available to rip a video file from a DVD in order to make the film available to a class.

The copyright team is happy to assist you with permissions clearance for your course materials. If you would like some help, you can reach us in one of the following ways:

• email your course readings list or syllabus to copyright@uleth.ca
• email individual readings as you assign them throughout the semester to copyright@uleth.ca
• provide temporary course access to Rumi Graham at copyright@uleth.ca to enable a permissions assessment of copyrighted content in your Moodle course.

For each item or reading we will:

• assess whether permission is needed.
• determine if needed permission is covered by an applicable license agreement or statutory user’s right.
• cover the cost of pay-per-use licensing or acquiring a multi-user ebook license through the Library’s dedicated course materials licensing fund, when possible.
• on request, format PDF scans of your selected book chapters for posting on Moodle or E-Reserve; and
• provide a stable link that will work on- and off-campus that you can post in Moodle or distribute to students to ensure they can access items in subscribed Library databases without encountering publishers’ paywalls.

If you request assistance in assessing whether permissions are needed for course materials you want your students to access, a copyright team member will prepare a permissions summary for all items assessed. We can also lend a hand if you wish to explore potential alternatives to expensive textbooks for future courses. 

Please contact us at copyright@uleth.ca if you wish to set up a time to discuss copyright questions or options. As well, feel free to make arrangements with us for a class workshop or presentation if you want your students to complete assignments involving choosing or using materials in ways that could raise copyright concerns.