| Best Practices |
Below are some best practices and tips for navigating copyright issues in your teaching and educational content creation.
Remember to review Humber's Fair Dealing, Copyright and Acceptable Use for Digital Services policies. If you have questions about what you read in the policies or if they do not provide enough clarity about a potential use of copyrighted material, contact copyright@humber.ca for assistance.
Avoid Disappearing Links
If you are relying on a link to a specific web page as part of your course content, you should save a copy of the page in case the webpage is no longer available. The Internet Exception would allow you to upload that copy of the page in to Blackboard as long as you cite the original URL where you accessed it.
Do not Upload PDFs from Library Databases
Remember that in almost all cases you can not upload material (PDFs, etc.) available through the library databases in to Blackboard. This material must be linked to. Contact copyright@humber.ca for assistance with creating stable links to library database content.
Avoid Posting Scanned Material anywhere but Blackboard
Anytime you are using the Fair Dealing exception in order to copy and share copyrighted material, ensure that the material is only available to students enrolled in the course. In other words, upload it in to your Blackboard course site, not an open website where the potential distribution of the material will go beyond the students in the course.
YouTube
When selecting course material, do not use material found on sites like YouTube that has been uploaded by someone who is not the legitimate copyright holder. This material may be taken down by the site administrators without any notice.
Use the Creative Commons
When creating PowerPoints, infographics and other learning objects, search for photos, images, art, etc. that come with Creative Commons licenses. This approach lowers the risk of potential copyright infringement and frees you from the time consuming approach of evaluating whether each item you want to add to your work can be copied/shared/modified using one of the Fair Dealing exceptions.
Only Share Legitimate Content
For legal and ethical reasons do not use or share copyrighted material that appears to have be made available without the permission of the copyright holder. For example, when looking online for a book, search engines can return results that present sites that offer PDFs of commercial textbooks for free or at minimal cost. In almost all cases these sites are operating illegally. If you are not sure about the legal status of material you find online, contact copyright@humber.ca and we can evaluate it.