Landman Library - Arcadia University

Disclaimer

Information on this website should not be construed as legal advice. Neither its creator nor Arcadia University are liable for any legal action that may result from its use.

Issues for Students

Plagiarism

Cite your sources properly! They could be webpages, blog entries, web images, scholarly articles, or even personal email. If you don’t cite properly, it is plagiarism, a practice that violates the Code of Academic Responsibility published in the Student Handbook. Not technically a copyright issue, this is closely related because of the need to know your source and use the information properly. Check out Citing for a little more on citing and citation styles.

Attributing Properly

See the MLA Style Guide and the APA Style Guide at Purdue University’s OWL for explanation and examples of how to acknowledge your sources properly, including web images and text.

Web Content Needs Attribution, Too

Everything on the Internet was created by someone. Take the time to investigate. Citation styles include the use of Anonymous when you can’t find the creator’s name or use of the business’s name for the creator. See the MLA Style Guide and the APA Style Guide at Purdue University’s OWL for examples.

Web Content You Can Use Freely

There are images and writings on the Web that you can use freely without worrying about copyright because they are licensed that way. Works that you come across that have a Creative Commons license are examples of these. (You still need to cite the source properly, though!) Take a look at the website and become familiar with the licenses Creative Commons has created. When you see the symbol on a work you want to use, follow the requirements of the license, e.g., attributing the work to its creator, and you’re good to go. There are Many of these kinds of works on the web. You can even search for licensed images through Creative Commons.

Issues for Instructors

Saving Articles or Chapters to Blackboard

Instructors may only digitize articles or chapters if they don’t already exist in digital form. This places the burden upon the instructor to identify and obtain the digital versions. A reference librarian can be of assistance here. Take a look at this analysis (Point #5) of the TEACH Act for a treatment of this subject matter or read the law directly in §110.

Also copies of chapters may not be used as a substitute for students purchasing a textbook. Read an analysis (Point #4) for more details or read the law directly in §110.

A simple way to avoid the challenges of digitizing articles or chapters or saving digital copies to Blackboard is to link to these as they already exist in a subscription database. If you need help learning how to do this, consult a librarian or instructional technologist.

Digitizing Video Media

A common desire for instructors is to digitize video media for students to watch from Blackboard. The answer could well be “no” simply from a fair use perspective, regardless of the access protection MyArcadia provides. The issue is that of substantiality (see Fair Use: Four Factors for more details). In order to digitize a video, you must make a digital copy. And as far as copyright is concerned, you can no more make an entire copy of a movie than you can make an entire copy of a book to give to someone else. There may be other considerations that will affect any decision you make. If you’ve sought and obtained explicit permission from the copyright holder or if you own the original with a license that permits such digitization, you are free to place a copy on Blackboard. Bandwidth to view the program is a different issue that IT will want to address.

Copyright Ownership of Work You Produce

You retain the copyrights for all work you produce at Arcadia University except what you produce at its expressed direction, such as a report or institutional research. Under these circumstances, Arcadia University is considered to be the institutional producer and thus owns the copyright.

You own the copyrights to syllabi, course lectures, assignments, tests, etc., but grant license to the university to use them in a manner consistent with its education mission. These are synopses of the policies. Refer to the faculty handbook, §80.10, for details.