Common Copyright Issues in Online Teaching

May 1, 2023

Here are some ways to uphold copyright expectations while building your online course.

Guidelines and Best Practices

Even though instruction in the classroom (even the online classroom!) is covered by the “Fair Use” clause of US Copyright Law, you still want to model ethical behavior for your learners. How can online instruction follow appropriate citational practices and professionalism and stay out of copyright trouble?

If you first need a refresher on Copyright Law and the Fair Use provision, you can find the relevant code sections of the law at the provided links. Or, visit the Fair Use Index for a simpler explanation.

Broadly speaking, you cannot use copyrighted material without permission. You can get permission through paying for material, getting personal approval from the copyright owner, or if the material passes into the public domain. (You can find lists of public domain works and more information at Duke University’s Center for the Study of the Public Domain.) Therefore, you can post textbook material for which you and your students have paid; you can copy and email excerpts from the novel your brother self-published because he gave you his okay. You can even embed clips of films from 1927 and earlier which are now in the public domain.

What can you do in an online class instead? Well, we can’t give you legal advice but we can point to the Copyright Law’s four fold test to determine if something falls under Fair Use. These four factors are, in brief:

•  What is the purpose and character of the use? This includes whether it’s for commercial or educational, non-profit use. In the classroom, you are falling under “non-profit/educational” usage.

• What is the nature of the work? If the book is a technical manual, fair use is much more likely to apply than if it’s the latest NYT bestselling fantasy novel.

• How big is the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole? In sum, the more of the work you use, the less likely fair use is to apply.

• What might the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work be? If using or providing the work would directly hurt its commercial value, it may not count as fair use.

Note: it is a four-factor test, meaning any legal decision about whether your inclusion of a text in a course counts as “fair use” would be determined based on all four conditions.

Above all, use your best judgment and alway make a good faith effort to follow the guidelines. Here are some tips:

• If you are using a lot of visuals in your online course, consider only using public domain, Creative Commons-licensed, or otherwise free-to-use images. One easy way you can do this is by searching for images on Wikimedia Commons, many of which are freely available and easy to credit (just click on “more details” on any image to see how to credit an image).
• If you want to post a film or other similar media, you cannot give out your streaming password, but you can post a legal clip from YouTube or a clip you make yourself from a physical media copy.
• If you are posting something from the public domain, or a scan of an article or book chapter, be sure to provide a full citation/reference for the text, whatever it is. This demonstrates a good faith effort on your part, as well as models good ethics and professionalism for your learners. And public domain materials can be free! Check out Project Gutenberg for the largest selection of free, public domain texts.

Upcoming Events

Quality Matters for Summer Accelerate

Clemson Online is proud to announce new opportunities for instructors to gain experience in online course creation, teaching with Canvas, and the Quality Matters course review process. They include:

• Online Course Bootcamp – last round starts May 8!
• Improving Your Online Course (IYOC)
• QM Essentials Review
• COFFEE: House Blend

Please see the full descriptions and registration links at our Quality Matters for Summer Accelerate website.

For applicable participants, these trainings can be listed on annual reviews in the Faculty Success system. Check with your department for specific details. If you have any questions about these training opportunities or any aspect of Quality Matters at Clemson, please email Lori Kinley.

Kaltura Trainings

Monday, May 8

1-1:30 PM: Basics I is an overview of Kaltura and how you can interact with it. It will introduce you to the difference between accessing Kaltura through Canvas and MediaSpace, the difference between My Media and Course Videos, adding an existing video to Kaltura, adding a collaborator (sharing a video), and embedding a video in Canvas. 

2-2:30 PM: Basics II is a demonstration of using Kaltura to create videos. It will cover accessing the Kaltura recorder, creating a video using the recorder, basic video edits, accessing your created video, and adding machine-generated captioning.

Tuesday, May 9

1-1:30 PM: Advanced I is dedicated to creating interactive quizzes in your Kaltura videos. After this training, you can create a quiz in Kaltura, add a video quiz as an assignment in Canvas, access quiz results, and use the Kaltura Dropbox to let students submit videos.

2-2:30 PM: Advanced II focuses on quality pedagogy when using Kaltura. After this session, you will be able to implement best practices for using Kaltura and you will be able to explain how to use Kaltura to enhance your class.

Contact James Butler with questions about these sessions, or register for all four Kaltura training sessions.