Copyright guidance

We would recommend that where possible the simplest thing is to link directly to the item on the publisher's website, creating a link that opens in a new window. Please see our Library helpsheet on  Adding library eresouce links to Moodle: if you need more help with this please consult your Subject Librarian.   

Please note it is unlikely to be legal to simply scan the text and attach it to Moodle or Leganto as a PDF, unless permission has been sought, or it has been specifically permitted by a Creative Commons licence.

Some electronic texts may now be eligible to be downloaded and added to Moodle or Leganto, but the situation is complex, and the process must be carried out by specific members of library staff.  If there is good reason for preferring not to link to the article, you can request upload to Moodle by completing our online extract form.  List the module name & number, the likely number of students, and the trimester start and finish date (or academic year dates if the module runs more than once a year).​  We will check for eligibility and get back to you.

Normally, yes, most requests fall under the terms of the University's CLA Higher Education Licence. 

Please note it is unlikely to be legal to simply scan the text and attach it to Moodle or Leganto, unless permission has been sought, or it has been specifically permitted by a Creative Commons licence.

Countries included in the CLA scheme are: 
UK; Argentina; Australia; Canada (including Quebec); Chile; Denmark; Finland; France; Hong Kong; Iceland; Ireland; Jamaica; New Zealand; Norway; Singapore; South Africa; Spain; Switzerland; Turkey.
(Items published in the USA are also covered, via CLA’s specific agreement with CCC.  Some specific inclusions or exclusions are listed on the CLA Higher Education Licence webpages).

The item must also be owned by the university; alternatively, we may be able to purchase a copyright-fee-paid copy from the British Library.

There are limits to how much you can copy:  up to the following amount for each course: 
Whichever is larger :-    10% of the whole publication   OR    1 complete :-

See CLA User Guidelines: Higher Education

Our Digital Extracts Service has an online request form. Please complete and submit this.

List the module name & number, the likely number of students, and the trimester start and finish date (or academic year dates if the module runs more than once a year).

Library staff check that requested materials are covered by the Licence - if they are not, we will get back to you with available options. 

Requests for digitisation are checked against the CLA website. The Library Licence Administrator maintains a record of requests, and emails you the resulting link to add to Moodle or Leganto. 

This may be possible. Up to 5% of an item may be permissible in any one year under copyright exceptions for Illustration for Instruction.  For longer extracts library staff can submit your requests to the individual publishers but response time is variable. 

Permission may or may not be granted. Costs are often dependent on the publisher's standard cost per page, multiplied by the number of pages and the number of students on the module. For large modules this can be expensive.

Newspaper articles are  covered by the NLA Education Establishment Licence via the CLA, and permissions can be checked on the CLA website.

No, under the conditions of the CLA Higher Education Licence, only designated staff may scan material. The Library must keep records of all digitised articles on Moodle, including those duplicated in other modules, as this impacts on fees paid to authors. We will normally provide these in the form of links to the CLA website.

We would therefore ask you to submit digitisation requests to us. However, if you already have scanned material to hand please inform us when you submit your request.

Only if you submit requests for all the modules concerned, and not at all outside of Moodle. Items are digitised for a specific Moodle module, for the duration of that module. They cannot be made available on open access sites such as department web pages or library catalogues.

To use an item on more than one Moodle module, please submit a separate digitisation request for each module.

Yes, this is normally possible. If your module runs in Trimesters 1 and 2 (and/or 3), then submit your request to cover the academic year, rather than one trimester.

It depends on the source of the image. If they are included in publications covered by the  CLA Higher Education Licence this is fine, subject to the terms above. If images are separated from a body of text, authorship identification must be made, and such images should not be used to build up a database of images as that would fall under a different licensing scheme (DACS).

For images that fall outside the scope of the CLA Higher Education licence inclusion in Moodle is not advisable unless you have permission or own the copyright in these. We would recommend making hypertext links instead, and seeking permissions where appropriate.

Currently, no. At present, the Library is bearing the costs of the Licence and the cost of individual item digitisation.

The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) will closely regulate and ensure that the strict provisions of the Licence are being adhered to.

They retain the right to carry out inspections of material held on Moodle and are likely to take a poor view of any contraventions. Any examples of non-compliance may adversely affect our ability to participate in the scheme in the future.

If you currently have electronic copies of published materials on Moodle, please check that they conform to the  CLA Higher Education Licence conditions, or that permission has been obtained from the publisher. If you have any doubts please take advice from your Subject Librarian.

The Library will administer, monitor and send reports of digitised materials to the CLA,as required under the terms of the Licence.

You may include quite a lot of video content in your modules, but you need to be very careful about what you include either in Moodle or in the Online Video Service, and who will be using it.
 
If it is material you have created yourself, and you own all the copyrights, or have permission from all other parties involved, that should be fine - see our Copyright - The Facts page for more information. Copyright ownership can be particularly complicated with multimedia products. 

Videos downloaded from the internet are likely to be copyright-protected, unless they specifically state otherwise, e.g. they may have been allocated an appropriate Creative Commons licence.  Unless there is is a clear permission, you may be infringing copyright if you make this kind of material available on the video streaming service or in Moodle. 

It is now possible to include material recorded from television or radio in Moodle via the University's Online Video Service as long as it is for educational purposes.  However, for this to be legal the access must be provided by the library staff under the terms of the university's ERA licence. Our Licence permits streaming to all staff and students of the university based in the UK, but please note that it excludes all overseas access.

To see the recordings already within the service you need to log in with your university password, and then search for TV Recordings.  We can make clips or whole films available, though no further adaptation is permitted.