Copyright

Copyright compliance is often a major concern for Departments and Colleges when developing a new course. With changing Canadian Copyright Laws and new University policies and procedures, it’s often intimidating for Course Authors to curate the content needed to enhance their courses. CCDE understands the need for copyright compliance and provides a complete team of knowledgeable and experienced copyright coordinators to support every aspect of copyright compliance at the University of Saskatchewan.

During the design and development stages of curriculum development, you will no doubt find a wealth of media, articles, and other support materials that would be invaluable for your students to access when curated into a module of instruction and with context added by a subject matter expert. How can CCDE help with this process and ensure compliance with University policy and Canadian Law?

An Understanding of the Fair Dealing Guidelines at the U of S

The Fair Dealing Guidelines are a set of policies and procedures for using copyright material for educational purposes. The current Canadian Copyright Law allows certain usage rights when materials are intended for the education or instruction of others. The CCDE’s copyright coordinators have unparalleled experience with these guidelines at the U of S and can be consulted with during any stage of the design and development process. Simply provide the curriculum team proper sourcing information for any materials you did not create yourself, and the team will advise and implement the best action for clearing the copyrighted materials for use.

The curriculum team will create a comprehensive copyright spreadsheet and maintain it as long as the course is delivered by CCDE. The team will also work with the University Copyright Office should your course be audited for copyright compliance. If you ever need to add or remove copyright material, simply let us know and as always provide us with the proper sourcing information, and we can make the changes that keep your course copyright compliant.

CCDE Copyright Spreadsheet Sample - Click image for larger view

CCDE Copyright Spreadsheet Sample – Click image for larger view

Using Open Educational Resources (OER)

Screen Shot 2014-01-20 at 8.25.44 PMThe Curriculum team can also provide you with instructions for best practices when seeking out materials. Many high quality materials available today are available under an “Open” license agreement that allows for use without copyright limitations. Again, the copyright coordinators are happy to provide information on how to use these materials and where to find them. Your Curriculum team supports the use of Creative Commons, Public Domain, and many other forms of Open Educational Licensed materials and can help you to understand your rights and responsibilities around using these materials.

Develop a Student Generated Content Protocol

Many innovative online and blended courses today offer the students the opportunity to contribute content to the course by either creating or curating materials. This trend not only gives the student more ownership over their personal learning, but also provides added benefits for their peers and contributes to keeping the course material up-to-date. But what are the copyright implications of this activity and how can you ensure that the copyright compliance is maintained when adopting this innovative teaching strategy? The CCDE Curriculum team can work with you to develop a Student Generated Content Protocol to address this issue. Along with the student rights and responsibility section of the Fair Dealing Guidelines, these documents provide students and instructors the information they need to stay compliant and maintain honest work practices.

 

Find out more about our Copyright Coordinators at the bottom of the Curriculum Development Team page