The October mini-conference brought over 60 teachers together to participate in 17 sessions. A description of the sessions complete with contacts and handouts are on the SpICE webpage. Jenni Dahl attended the presentation on copyright laws and provided a great overview of the information.
Dr. Rebecca Butler, NIU professor, author, and former librarian, presented “Staying Legal In the Cyber Age” at the SpICE mini-conference. During her presentation Dr. Butler helped to unravel some of the complexities of copyright issues, specifically how they affect students and teachers in academic settings. Dr. Butler explained that Fair Use Laws support the use of copyrighted materials for academic purposes. For example, according to Dr. Butler, students have the right to use copyrighted materials for assignments. However, in order to stay legal, Dr. Butler advises students to use only what is needed and if posted online, take the material down after the assignment is complete. Teachers should keep in mind that they do not have the same rights to copyrighted materials as their students.
Here are just a few bullet points that I took away from Dr. Butler’s presentation:
- You own the copyright to anything that you create.
- In order to comply with Fair Use, take only what you need and use it temporarily.
- You may make one copy of copyrighted material for archival purposes.
- Under fair use laws students may use copyrighted material for a class assignment.
- There are shades of grey with copyright.
- Plagiarism and copyright infringement are not the same.
In order to get more in depth information regarding copyright issues consider reading Dr. Butler’s books which are available through Amazon:
Copyright for Teachers and Librarians
Smart Copyright Compliance for Schools: A How-To-Do-It Manual
In addition Dr. Butler compiled a great list of online resources which may be accessed here: handout
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