FAQs: Providing access to journal articles in your teaching materials

No. The limits for journal articles are not a percentage of the whole but relate to the number of articles from a given issue of the journal: you may copy or put online, in reliance on the Part VB 'CAL' licence, one article per issue from a HARD-COPY of the journal, or more than one if they are on the same specific topic.

Note that this allowance EXCLUDES journal articles sourced from electronic databases or ejournal resources. These are governed by separate contracts which determine whether you can or cannot print out multiple copies for course readers or download and re-upload the article PDFs into MUSO. Send ejournal and database licence queries through ask.monash (category Library>resources>databases)

More than one article can be copied from a hard-copy journal, for educational purposes (in reliance on the Part VB teaching allowance) provided the articles are on the same specific subject matter.
To determine what is considered 'the same subject matter', you should consider the topic of the article in the context of the overall focus of the journal. Two articles on period costumes in the journal 'Film and History' would be considered to be on the same subject matter; however two articles just broadly on historical films in the same journal may be stretching the 'same subject matter' test too far: because the whole journal is obviously about historical films! Try to keep within the spirit of the law in assessing whether the desired articles from a given issue are on the same subject matter: if you suspect it could be seen as unreasonable that you copied 80% of the whole journal then it probably is unreasonable.

It is doubtful as to whether an entire special issue of a journal could be copied or put online in reliance on the Part VB 'CAL' licence; it would depend very much on a detailed assessment of the articles within that special issue, and how closely they deal with the same subject matter. Special issues dealing with fairly broad topics ( 'IR reforms', 'teaching science in secondary schools') may still contain articles which are fairly diverse in their actual subject matter.

This depends on the terms and conditions of the licence agreement for that particular database or electronic journal. The normal educational allowances provided by the Copyright Act (ie the Part VB 'CAL' licence allowances) do not apply to licensed electronic resources such as ebooks, ejournals or databases. These are all governed by their own separate licences - and so you will need to check first with the Library's licensing section before you make multiple copies for students (ie in print readers) or before you 're-upload' PDFs or other electronic files into your unit website. Most ejournals and databases do allow you to provide links to their content.

• Database licence inquiries can be sent through ask.monash (category Library>resources>databases)

Include the following details:

• title of journal
• title of database from which you sourced the journal article
• the format in which you wish to distribute the copies and
• the purpose of the copying (eg part of course materials for a Monash course; part of materials provided for a professional development course etc).

The licence provided by the Part VB 'CAL' licence does extend to the copying and communication of works 'in electronic format', including works found on the Internet, provided that you did not have to be a subscriber or member to actually access that content (ie the webpage is, or was - at the time you accessed the content - 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).

For articles on a publicly accessible webpage or website, the rules are the same as for the copying of hard-copy journal articles: 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 article on the public part of the news service or website, as many services routinely archive their content and only make this archive available, under terms and conditions, to subscribers.

Whether you can reproduce your own published articles in your teaching materials will depend on the terms of the publishing agreement you signed when you had your articles published. Some publisher agreements will allow the author to retain broad uses over their work including the right to use the work or article for non-commercial teaching and research purposes - but you should always check your agreement to be sure. Remember - in that agreement you may have handed over copyright to the publisher and you are bound by the terms of that agreement as a contract between you and your publisher.

Bear in mind also that, under the University's Intellectual Property Statute (Statute 11, section 2.6) Monash retains a non-exclusive, royalty free licence to use your research works for the University's teaching and research purposes. This needs to be taken into account when you are negotiating with potential publishers. This is the part of the Monash University Intellectual Property Statute that seeks to ensure that you can include your own research publications in your Monash course materials (without having to get express permission from a publisher) even where you have assigned copyright to your publisher.