Below are frequently asked questions related to copyright. LSE staff and students who need any further help or assistance should contact:
QUESTIONSDr Jane Secker (j.secker@lse.ac.uk)
Centre for Learning Technology (S169)
St Clements Building, LSE
Telephone: 020 7955 6530
- Can I upload journal articles, or chapters from books, into my Moodle course?
- Can I make items on my reading list available electronically?
- Can I link to electronic resources available through the Library?
- Do I need copyright clearance to incorporate an item (i.e. text, table, diagram etc) in my Moodle course if it is for educational purposes?
- If I use material as part of assessment do I still need copyright permission?
- How long does it take to get copyright clearance and how do I get it?
- Do I need copyright clearance to use slides and video in the VLE?
- Can I incorporate other web based materials into my site freely?
- What about linking to other websites?
- What is Creative Commons and how do the licences work?
- What are open educational resources and how can I find and use them in Moodle?
Can I upload journal articles, or chapters from books, into my Moodle course?
No. All articles, e-books, book chapters, in fact any documents are subject to copyright unless explicitly stated otherwise. You cannot legally upload them to Moodle, even for educational purposes, without formal permission from the copyright owner (not necessarily the author). However you can usually link to such items - see the next entry for details.
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Can I make items on my reading list available electronically?
Journal articles and chapters from books available in electronic format via LSE Library can be made available from Moodle provided you link to these resources. If you wish to scan readings for use in Moodle you should contact the Library's Electronic Course Pack Service team to request material as this may require copyright permission. CLT provide more information about Online Readings in Moodle.
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Can I link to electronic resources available through the Library?
Yes, this is a good way of directing your students to use electronic resources, such as JSTOR journal articles or to a database such as the International Bibliopgraphy of the Social Sciences (IBSS), for which the LSE have an existing subscription. Don't forget that some licence restrictions mean resources are only accessible from the LSE campus. For more advice about linking these types of resources see Linking to Electronic Journal Sources.
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Do I need copyright clearance to incorporate an item (i.e. text, table, diagram etc) in my Moodle course if it is for educational purposes?
You will need permission unless:
- the items are out of copyright
- you are the copyright holder
- You may be the author of an article but you are not necessarily the copyright holder. You may have assigned rights to the publisher; it is important that you check your publishing contact / terms of agreement.
- LSE is the copyright holder
- If a colleague has produced materials which you want to include in your web site it is only courteous to discuss this with them. Remember, permission is also required to adapt material produced by someone else.
- The items are licensed under a Creative Commons or other open licence.
If I use material as part of assessment do I still need copyright permission?
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 made special provisions for examination purposes. For the purposes of setting, communicating or answering the questions in closed exams anything may be done with copyright materials (except for music) without permission. If you are using online assessment tools, such as Quizzes or Surveys and wish to include copyrighted material contact Jane Secker (j.secker@lse.ac.uk) for more information.
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How long does it take to get copyright clearance and how do I get it?
The time taken to get copyright permission can vary depending on individual copyright holders. The School holds a Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) Licence which covers the majority of UK publishers which means such materials can be cleared quickly. However, obtaining permission for other materials e.g. American publications, in electronic format can take many weeks and may be prohibitively expensive.
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Do I need copyright clearance to use slides and video in the Moodle?
Slides from your own lectures for which you hold the copyright, can be easily incorporated into a Moodle course. However you will need copyright permission to use materials which belong to other individuals. You should take care not to include any material in PowerPoint presentations without permission from the rights owner. For further details see Copyright, Images and Multimedia.
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Can I incorporate other web based materials into my site freely?
No! Copyright exists on web-based materials in the same way as other published materials. You cannot cut and paste information or images into your site from another site without permission. If you wish to direct students to other web based materials, you can link to other websites, see below.
Before downloading or copying any material from the web you should pay particular attention to any copyright statement, terms and conditions or licence attached to the site. Increasingly, organisations are including this information prominently on their site and you should read it and take note of any specific restrictions. For example, see the BBC's terms of use for their website.
Many educational websites will freely grant permission for other academics to use their material. You will need to identify the copyright holder and often the webmaster for a site is the most useful first point of contact. Their contact details are usually included on the bottom of web pages.
Images are equally covered by copyright law and increasingly commercial website owners are including a watermark in their images to discourage illegal copying. There are numerous web sites available that provide large number of free images.
LSE have a subscription to the JISC Media Hub. The collection contains images, audio and video which has been copyright-cleared for educational use. You will need your LSE username and password to access the collection. More information is available at Copyright, Images and Multimedia.
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What about linking to other websites?
Linking is a fundamental part of the web and generally does not cause copyright issues. However, there are several good practice guidelines that you should adhere to.
- If you are linking to a resource available on the web you should as far as possible avoid a "deep link" which bypasses the home page of an organisation. This is for several reasons, but in particular, because deep links are less likely to be stable, and the material may be moved or taken down.
- If you are linking to an external website you may wish to ensure the link opens in a new browser window or a new tab. This is to make it clear that the user is visiting an external site and leaving your website. It is particularly important when you are linking from Moodle, as it will help the student navigate back to Moodle. This is because many of the library subscription resources will not work when you click the back button.
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What is Creative Commons and how do the licences work?
Creative commons is a way of licensing material to protect some of the rights, rather than copyright which protects the work entirely. You can find out more about the Creative Commons movement and the licences on the CC website. So for example some people are happy to allow you to re-use their work (e.g. an image, a video) if it’s for a non-commercial purpose and if you give them credit. You can search for material licensed under different types of Creative Commons licenses using the Creative commons search.
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What are open educational resources and how can I find and use them in Moodle?
Several universities are starting to release some of their teaching and learning materials as open educational resources, which means they available under an open licence and can be re-used by others. Many of these materials are licensed under Creative Commons licences (see above). Examples of sites containing open education resources include MIT’s Open Courseware initiative and the Open University’s OpenLearn site. LSE have also released a small number of open educational resources available in Learning Resources Online. You can find these resources in Jorum, the UK’s repository for teaching and learning materials, many of which are open educational resources. Depending on the format you may be able to upload the materials directly into Moodle. If you require any further advice about reusing or adapting materials from Jorum then contact clt-support@lse.ac.uk.
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