Moving your classes online: Keep copyright in mind

Wednesday, March 18, 2020

As courses are being transitioned to online, please keep the following in mind:

  • The same rules that were in place before are in place now. There have been no changes to the assessment of copyright-protected materials.
  • Linking to Library licensed resources (eBook and eJournal content) is always okay, with the exception of the Harvard Business Review.
  • Linking to legal, freely available material online is always okay.
  • If you want to provide content directly in LEARN, remember:
    • The Fair Dealing Advisory provides guidelines on how much may be scanned and uploaded to LEARN.          
    • eJournals and eBooks are almost always covered by license agreements. License agreements set out specific rules to follow when using electronic resources. To find out if you can use licensed content in LEARN, use the Finding Usage Rights page for step-by-step instructions on how to find license terms. Alternatively, you can email copyright@uwaterloo.ca for an answer.
  • When posting material online, remember that the Advisory and Library licenses guidelines are based on providing materials to students in a way where access is restricted (ex. password protected) to only the instructor and students in the class. 

Resources and Services available: