Online Presentations and Poster Sessions Within Canadian Copyright Guidelines

We’ve had several instructors approach us about how to move their poster sessions and student presentations to a remote (online) environment. After extensive conversations with the Copyright Coordinator, Undergraduate Research Initiative Coordinator, and our Distance Education Unit, we felt it was a good idea to develop some support resources around this topic. An earlier post addressed choosing appropriate technology, while this one will provide guidance on staying within appropriate copyright parameters.

If the work does not contain any copyrighted materials then you have the option of having the students share their posters openly. Give them the option of what license they wish to put on their own work. This could mean that they choose to copyright it or choose to use one of the Creative Commons licenses. Let the students choose.

If, however, their posters or presentations contain copyrighted material, or you are unsure if it does, then please follow these recommendations laid out by the U of S Copyright Coordinator, Kate Langrell.

• Put a prominent statement on a password protected webpage that says something to the effect of: “PLEASE NOTE: These posters are provided here for educational and research purposes, and for viewing only. Please do not copy, download, or distribute any materials from this page without written permission from the creator(s).” To facilitate this, consider including the instructor’ email unless the students are willing to share their own.
• To be safe, limit access to the site to instructors and students within the college the course is part of.
• Having the posters available for a limited time would also mitigate the risk of copyright issues.
• All images and other copyrighted materials used in the posters or presentations should be cited. If there are any images that could be easily replaced with an openly-licensed or copyright-free alternative (e.g., a Creative Commons licensed image), that would lower the risk of copyright issues.

For more information on copyright, please see the University of Saskatchewan Copyright websiteUniversity of Saskatchewan Copyright website.