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Copyright Office

Course materials

As an instructor, you choose course materials to distribute to students. These materials might be available to use as follows:

  • available to use under the Fair Dealing Guidelines
  • available to use with the purchase of a transactional license
  • available in the public domain
  • licensed by the library
  • openly licensed

Choosing course materials

To help you decide what you can use in your teaching, learn more about protected works. You can also use the copyright flowchart. The flowchart applies to material posted on a password-protected site, such as Brightspace or the course reserves platform.

The type of material you select will determine the steps you need to take before sharing it with students. This page is focused on print materials. Learn more about using images, audio and video in the classroom.

Sharing course materials

The principle behind the Fair Dealing Guidelines is that copying or communicating a copyright-protected work is not a substitute for purchasing the work. When including copied works in a learning management system (LMS), the following safeguards must be met:

  • the Fair Dealing Guidelines do not apply to the posting of short excerpts to a wiki, a blog or a service offered by a third party such as Dropbox, Refworks, Mendeley or Google Drive
  • the LMS must be password protected
  • the short excerpts must only be accessible to the students enrolled in the course
  • where possible, persistent links to material should be shared instead of uploading and redistributing content

We suggest that you include the fair dealing statement in your course website. This lets students know that materials distributed to them may only be used for research and private study.

Textbooks

Textbook adoptions are done through the UVic Bookstore. For the latest submission deadlines and procedures, visit the UVic Bookstore website.

Library collection

Explore the Libraries’ ebook collection to find titles to use in your course.

You can also find articles, videos, audio and other materials in the library collection to use in your course.

Linking to materials in the library collection is always permitted. It is encouraged as an alternative to copying. Use persistent URLs (also known as stable or permanent URLs) to ensure that students can access the material.

Use the widget below to create a persistent link to articles and other library materials.

Create a persistent link



If your browser supports it, this new URL has been copied to the clipboard!

Open Educational Resources (OERs)

Open education resources (OERs) are learning, teaching and research materials that are released under an open license. This license permits free access and gives others the ability to reuse, repurpose, adapt and redistribute the material.

The UVic Libraries has curated an OER by Discipline Directory, which lists OERs organized by discipline. This directory is regularly updated with new resources. For more information, visit our Open Educational Resources website.

Handouts

Handouts are any material given directly to students, either as print or digital copies. These often include copies of journal articles, book chapters, course notes or PowerPoint slides. Some handouts contain copyright-protected material. Others may be original content created by the instructor.

When using copyright-protected material, ensure your copying complies with UVic’s Fair Dealing Guidelines and Canadian copyright law. By the end of your course, the total amount copied must not have exceeded these guidelines.

Coursepacks

Coursepacks, whether print or digital, are compilations of readings that students purchase for their courses. They can include journal articles, book excerpts, an instructor’s own work and more. They are exclusively sold through the UVic Bookstore.

Instructors can create a coursepack using the bookstore’s License Logging Tool and submit your requests to the bookstore for printing and distribution.

Coursepacks that contain copyright-protected material will be reviewed for copyright compliance before production. They must comply with UVic’s Fair Dealing Guidelines.

The cost of coursepacks can vary, depending on:

  • copyright fees charged by the copyright owners
  • the number of pages and documents
  • the volume of coursepacks being produced

Those costs are generally reflected in the selling price of the coursepack, over which UVic has no control. Copyright fees are collected and paid to the copyright owners.

Out of print works

An “out of print” work is no longer produced or distributed by the publisher, but may still be copyright protected. You may reproduce a short excerpt from out of print works as part of a coursepack, following the Fair Dealing Guidelines.

If the amount you need to copy exceeds the Guidelines, you need to seek permission to copy it. Obtaining copyright permissions can take 6 to 8 weeks, so submit your request early to make sure your coursepack is ready in time.

Lab and department manuals

Departments are responsible for the complete preparation of lab and department manuals.

  • manuals must be printed through UVic Printing Services and sold through the UVic Bookstore
  • all copyright-protected material in a manual (including images, photos, graphs and figures) must adhere to the Fair Dealing Guidelines
  • if the amount copied exceeds the copying guidelines, the department is responsible for seeking permission from the copyright holder and for any copyright fees
  • permissions are usually purchased for each term the material is used
  • all third-party copyright-protected material used in the manual must be cited
  • departments should retain a record of all material included in the manual