FAQs: Preparing course materials

No. The allowances and licences available for educators are fairly generous but they aren't really as broad as that.

Where the University owns the material (ie. it was created or authored by a staff member or contractor specifically as course materials for a unit or course) then this material can be used and re-used freely for the educational purposes of the University.

But course materials often contain a great deal of 'third-party' content, not owned or authored by the University.

Where that 'third-party' content is still in copyright, the University relies on a combination of mechanisms in order to legally provide students with copies - or online access - to a variety of third-party works, without seeking permission each time from copyright owners:

1. Specific allowances and statutory licences within the Copyright Act, notably the

• the Part VA licence ('Screenrights licence') for copying or limited online use of broadcast content (TV, radio, and certain broadcaster podcasts).
• the Part VB licence ('CAL' licence) for copying or limited online use of 'still' images or other graphical content and of limited amounts of text.
  

NB The statutory licences do NOT include the copying or online use of commercially produced or purchased DVDs, CDs, multimedia products or software

2. A large number of separately negotiated contracts and licenses with vendors and suppliers of electronic resources such as ejournals, ebooks, databases or software. To find out about the terms of use for a particular ejournal or database send an inquiry through ask.monash (category Library>resources>databases)

3. In the case of music (performances, recordings): the Universities Educational Music Licence negotiated specifically with the four Australian music agencies.

4. Open licensed content (content released under a Creative Commons type licence for example)

Where none of the above mechanisms provides what is needed, permission can be obtained from the copyright holder.

Refer to the Teaching page for details on the limits imposed by these various licences on the copying and online use of third-party content.

No. The Part VA 'Screenrights' licence only allows staff to record (or copy DVDs of) content taken from a TV broadcast: not hired or purchased disks of films or programs sold separately - even if that program on the DVD was originally shown on TV! Remember that film and program producers, for example, distribute their works across several different formats for money: selling one licence to television or radio stations (broadcast rights), selling a different viewing or display licence to cinemas, and selling copies of the program on DVD through retailers and so on.

Refer to the FAQs page on using audio / audio-visual content for educational purposes for more information about the Part VA licence and use of broadcast content.

If the sound recording is a musical work - and if that particular work falls within the repertoire or 'list of works' covered by the Universities' Educational Music Licence, you may be able to copy it for educational purposes, subject to the licence conditions.

The Universities' Educational Music Licence does not include any and all musical works. Nor does it cover non-musical sound recordings or the copying or online use of sheet music (musical scores).

For information about using music in your teaching refer to the FAQs Music page and seek advice from the Copyright Adviser.

The Part VB 'CAL' licence does extend to the copying and online use of works 'in electronic format', including text or images found on the Internet, provided that you did not have to be a subscriber or member to actually access the content (ie the webpage is, or was - at the time you accessed it - open to the general public; if you had to be a subscriber to get access to the content then you've probably agreed to other terms of use and must abide by them).

Note that articles or electronic works as accessed through the Library's collection of ejournals, ebooks or electronic databases, are governed by separate licence agreements, often with strict terms and conditions. Send queries about specific licence terms through ask.monash (category Library>resources>databases)

For articles on a publicly accessible webpage or website, the rules are the same as for the copying of hard-copy works:

• for 'book' type works (eg reports) 10% of the words/pages of the electronic work
• for articles or news items: one article per issue/date of the newspaper or publication; or more than one if they are on the same specific topic.

It is advisable to keep a record of the date you accessed the work on the public part of the website, as many services routinely archive their content and only make this archive available, under terms and conditions, to subscribers.

Monash University owns copyright in all course materials created by Monash staff for Monash units and courses. Refer to the University intellectual property policies for details.

Readers or unit guide which include 'third-party' works should include this Copyright Statement on the front of the reader or on the inside page:

Copyright © (insert year). NOT FOR RESALE. All materials produced for this course of study are reproduced under Part VB of the Copyright Act 1968, or with permission of the copyright owner or under terms of database agreements. These materials are protected by copyright. Monash students are permitted to use these materials for personal study and research only. Use of these materials for any other purposes, including copying or resale, without express permission of the copyright owner, may infringe copyright. The copyright owner may take action against you for infringement.

For other types of course materials (MUSO unit websites, lectures, etc), see the statements available from the Copyright Statements page, Resources and Downloads section (NB Access restricted to Monash University staff and students)

Yes: all third party material should be correctly referenced in the style appropriate to your discipline or research field (as a minimum: authors name, title of work and source). The Library website has advice about citation styles and methods.

Teaching staff in charge of running a unit (course or unit coordinators and or lecturers) are responsible for the copyright compliance of their unit materials. If you are an administrative staff member or a research assistant copying material on behalf of academic staff member, you can ask the academic staff member to sign a Copyright Checklist and Declaration form available from the Resources and Downloads page (NB Access restricted to Monash University staff and students). This reinforces the academic staff members bear ultimate responsibility for the compliance of the materials.

As a staff member teaching the course you will still be responsible for compliance of the materials supplied to students for that course or unit, regardless of whether you created them originally or not. As soon as practicable, you should identify and prioritise those elements most likely to involve serious copyright risks (ie content put online, made available on CDs to students; content downloaded from website or from e-journals or databases, reader content) and then systematically review the materials, replacing or editing as required to meet licence conditions.

No. Generally speaking, you are able to freely display, show, demonstrate or 'perform' most types of works during the course of a face-to-face lecture or tutorial. The Copyright Act has a specific section (Section 28) which allows educators to show, for example, a legitimate DVD in class, provided no fee is charged and the viewing is only open to enrolled students and staff of the unit.

Generally speaking, you shouldn't need to remove content from your lectures when placing them online but be aware that, depending on the content embedded in the lecture, the resultant lecture files (as destined for MUSO or similar) may need to be made available as stream only files (not downloadable files).

When relying on the educational statutory licences (Part VA or VB statutory licences) or the Universities Educational Music Licence, you are also required to include certain copyright notices. So be aware of what those licences require (refer to the Teaching page and also the Music licence section of this site)

Refer also to the FAQs for Lecturing

If in doubt, seek advice from the Copyright Adviser before you put the lecture online.

Under Section 200 of the Copyright Act, literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works may be copied for examination purposes.

• Teaching staff may copy literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works to include as part of the questions to be answered in an examination paper.
• Students may copy literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works to include as part of the answers in an examination.
• There are no limits to the amount of a work that may be copied.
• Each copy must include acknowledgement of the author/composer/artist.
• Works may be reproduced in digital or hardcopy formats, but may not be communicated, i.e. made available online or emailed.

This provision applies only to the reproduction of literary, dramatic, musical or artistic works and does not apply to the reproduction of sound recordings, cinematograph films or broadcasts. For information about copying sound recordings, films or broadcasts for exam purposes, contact the Copyright Adviser .

Monash University owns copyright in course materials so staff can't use those materials in their teaching external to Monash unless by prior agreement.

Yes, but only if the amount charged does not exceed cost recovery in producing the materials. The statutory licences (Part VA for broadcast content and Part VB for text and graphical content) - and most other licensing or permission arrangements - do not allow any direct profit-making or commercial gain to be made from content copied or put online for educational purposes. If your activity needs to make a profit you should negotiate a separate permission agreement with the copyright holder.

Illegal fees

Be aware that a charge levied for copied materials might be an illegal fee under the Commonwealth Higher Education Act (1988). Institutions must not charge students for goods or services which are required for a course of study unless those goods or services or alternatives to them are also available to students at no additional charge. Refer to the Department of Education, Science and Training to determine whether or not the charge is a 'fee' for the purposes of the Higher Education Act.