Sue+Price

 As an instructor, I would want to review the instructor contract to determine the institutions policy towards who owns the copyright to the course design and study the copyright policy of the institution.

When creating a distance education course in an educational setting, there are many copyright issues to consider. One issue is whether or not the resource is in the public domain. If it was published before 1923, published by the U.S Government, or the copyright is explicitly abandoned, it is considered public domain. If the work is in the public domain, there is nothing that has to be done to use it.

Showing a DVD video to the distance education class would require that the school purchase or rent an original copy specifically for the purpose of instruction. I would make sure that I followed all the guidelines of the TEACH Act and DMCA to insure compliance (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009, p. 308). I would make sure that the distance education infrastructure was in compliance by making sure there was a copyright policy available from the school and that it was posted on the school webpage. Also, that a training program was in place to teach other instructors and distance education students about copyright law. If this wasn’t available, I would develop a training copyright module. Additionally, I would insure that the school has maintained it accreditation (Simonson, et al., p. 308).

Placing photographs of images for students to use can be very confusing with regards to copyright law and fair use. There can be many copyrights involved with that image such as the original artist, the photographer, and the publisher of the photo (Simonson et al., p. 312). I would try to purchase image sets provided by organizations with authorization to distribute the copyrighted material to educational institutions. However, in the event that the image needed was not available for this resource I would follow the guidelines of CONFU, though these have not been fully endorsed as of 2009 (Simonson et al., p. 305, 312). I would obtain permission to use the image if I had any doubt of its copyright status. However, I could use the image can on a password protected site, such as Blackboard, to insure that only enrolled students were viewing the image. A digitized image can be used for one semester, but if I wanted to continue to use it I would evaluate its use against the four-factors of fair use; purpose/character, nature of, amount or substantiality, and market effect (Simonson et al., p. 300). If it didn’t fall under one or more of these four-factors I would be required to obtain permission. To obtain permission I would contact the publisher by finding the copyright notice in the book, magazine, or the website where I found the image. I would send a letter including the ISBN of the book or any identifying information available and request permission or ask where to obtain permission. I would then follow the directions given in the response until I was granted or denied permission. If I was denied permission I would have to remove that resource from any future use in the class.

Another copyright issue is that students who contribute to the wiki, email, or blog own the copyright to their words. As an instructor, I would be responsible to make sure that students only shared their own work. If I observed students copying another student’s text without citing the author, I would meet with each student individually to discuss the matter and have the student who violated the copyright correct it by adding the citation to the posting.

Fair use allows copying of limited amounts for educational purposes. If I were to copy part of an article for the class to read it would be covered under fair use. For both educational and business environments, it should fall under one of these categories to be considered covered by fair use: commentary (news reporting), criticism, teaching, scholarship and research. Fair use only pertains to the business use when it is commentary or criticism (Copyright Society of U.S.A., 2007).

References Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M.; Zvacek, S., (2009). //Teaching and learning at a distance: foundations of distance education//. Boston: Pearson. The Copyright Society of U.S.A. (2007). Obtained from www.copyrightkids.org.