Copyright in Moodle FAQ

 

Q: May I post copyrighted material in Moodle? (journal articles, book chapters, images, etc.)

A: You can post the following on Moodle: 

 

•      Your own copyrighted material: e.g. notes, course outlines, publications for which you have retained the right to post copies online, including your presentation slides;

 

•      Public domain material: i.e. materials whose authors have been deceased for more than 50 years;

 

•      Licensed material:  i.e. materials that are covered by a University e-journal or e-book license which allows posting (see How to Check Copying Restrictions for a Specific Journal), or materials covered by a Creative Commons, or Open Access license – bear in mind that some Library journals will allow you to post their articles directly to Moodle, while others will require that you link to the article;

 

•      Government of Canada material: provided the material doesn’t specify otherwise and you do not revise the material in any way;

 

•      Links: there are no copyright concerns in linking to material, such as websites and library resources, so link away!;

 

•      Scanned material: under the fair dealing exception. See Fair Dealing Guidelines. 

 

•      Insubstantial portions of a work: copyright infringement concerns are only triggered if you copy an entire work or a substantial portion of a work. You should consider both the quantity and quality of the excerpt in deciding whether it is substantial. See Section II C, Insubstantial Portions of Works, of CAUT Guidelines for the use of Copyrighted Material.

 

•      Website material: There is an exception to the Copyright Act allowing educational use of Internet materials, including reproducing those materials for your students, provided that the material appears to have been posted legitimately (i.e. with the consent of the copyright owner), there is no clearly visible notice or link to such a notice prohibiting you from using the material for educational purposes, there is no technological protection measure preventing you from accessing or copying the material (e.g. it’s not on a password protected website) and when you use it, you acknowledge the author and the website.

 

A: Yes! If you created your slides and included short excerpts of copyright materials from other sources, posting these slides on Moodle is likely covered by the fair dealing exception, and the ‘educational use of Internet materials’ exception may also cover your use of copyright from other sources in this way.

 

A: Yes! There is a new exception to the Copyright Act allowing educational use of Internet material, including reproducing that material for your students, provided that the material appears to have been posted legitimately (i.e. with the consent of the copyright owner), there is no clearly visible notice or link to such a notice prohibiting you from using the material for educational purposes, there is no technological protection measure preventing you from accessing or copying the material (e.g. it’s not on a password protected website) and when you use it, you acknowledge the author and the website. 

You may also copy and share Internet materials with students under the fair dealing exception.

 

A: If you have the student’s permission.