November 11, 2010

As more faculty post course materials on Blackboard, teach with a rich variety of media, and author their own digital works, more questions arise about how copyright law and academic traditions apply to these new forms of publishing.  In this session, Jane Davis presented an overview of US copyright law, discussing the TEACH Act and the Fair Use exception, which allow some copyrighted materials to be used for educational purposes.  We discussed common scenarios encountered by faculty using digital materials in their courses and saw examples of the thinking process a faculty member might go through when applying a fair use checklist to determine whether their intended use of a work favors fair use.

Presenter Materials

• Jane Davis's PowerPoint slides
• Student work permission form

Additional Resources

• CUNY copyright guidelines
• University of Texas TEACH Act checklist
• Columbia University Fair Use checklist
• Hunter College Things to consider when using copyrighted materials in Blackboard
• Creative Commons
  An organization working to increase the body of work available for free and legal sharing.  Provides a simple way for you to grant copyright permission for certain uses of your work and a way of searching for materials that are available under Creative Commons licenses.