Best Practices for Posting Copyrighted Materials on UBC’s Learning Management System and Linking to Websites
What are the “best practices” that I should follow anytime that I post copyrighted materials on UBC’s learning management systems (LMS)?
If you wish to rely on the fair dealing or other educational exceptions to post copyrighted materials on UBC’s learning or course management systems (e.g. Canvas, Entrada, Connect, MEDICOL), you need to ensure that such postings are subject to reasonable safeguards to prevent students from distributing, transmitting or disseminating such materials to persons outside the course or class. At a minimum, you should abide by the following best practices and limitations:
- You are strongly encouraged to use the Library course reserves tool in the LMS to provide access to Library e-resources, such as full-text journal articles.
- You are also strongly encouraged to use the LMS to distribute and post course materials. An LMS has many benefits, but from a copyright perspective, it has the advantage of being password protected and automatically manages student access (i.e. it automatically adds and removes students as they enroll or drop your course).
- Only post materials if you have the copyright holder’s permission, the materials are in the public domain, or the materials are “short excerpts” (for example, not entire books or articles, as set out in more detail in the Fair Dealing Requirements).
- Credit the author and source of all materials.
- Only include materials that are reasonably necessary for the purpose of the course.
Include a clearly visible notice on all materials you post that states:
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- “This copy is made solely for your personal use for research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism or review only. Further reproduction, fixation, distribution, transmission, dissemination, communication, or any other uses, may be an infringement of copyright if done without securing the permission of the copyright owner. You may not distribute, e-mail or otherwise communicate these materials to any other person.”
What are the “best practices” that I should follow when I provide links to websites?
Keep in mind these best practices:
- Do not “frame” the other webpage or any content from the other webpage.
- If the web address does not clearly identify the website and content owner, you should also include the full details of the author, copyright owner and source of the materials by the link (this will avoid any suggestion that the website is your own material or that you are somehow affiliated with the other site).
- Link only to reputable and legitimate websites.
