Copyright at MIT: For Teaching Staff

Academics have a personal responsibility to ensure that their course is compliant with Copyright, including courses which they have 'taken over' from another academic.

For teaching your students, you may copy:

• One chapter of a book, or 10% of the pages (10% of the words if the work is in electronic form)
• One article from a journal or newspaper (more if the articles are for the same assignment, or are on the same subject matter in a special edition)
• 15 pages from an anthology (for example: a collection of short stories)
• All of an artistic work, for example: a diagram or photo (when not available for separate purchase)
• 10% of a sheet music piece or play

Do not upload PDF articles from Library subscription databases to your Moodle unit. This  would breach the subscription vendor licence terms of use, you may only provide a link to the article. When linking to articles that the library subscribes to, use the permalink provided by the database, so that students can access it via EZProxy authentication. Alternatively, use a Flex reading list.

Linking to Non-Library content

Check the terms and conditions of the website to ensure that linking is allowed, especially if you are going to embed the link.

Check that what you are linking to is not copyright breaching content i.e. ResearchGate, Academia, Slideshare, CourseHero, and some YouTube videos etc.

Do not link to content that is behind a paywall  (request payment to view/download PDF). To ensure students can access readings please request to have the article added to your Flex reading list and the library will try to source Copyright compliant copies.

Copyright is a complex topic, and this advice is general in nature. Please consult the Librarian if you need further advice.

FLEX is an online platform provided by the Copyright Agency as part of MIT Statutory Education Licence to manage readings and other course material. Flex is integrated into Moodle, and each unit has its own Readings tool in the Moodle shell. Flex can link to any open content on the internet, and can be used to host scanned copies of chapters or articles, in line with Australian Copyright Law. For more information about  Flex and how to use it, see the Copright Agency Flex website.

 Flex is integrated into Moodle, and each unit has its own Readings tool in the Moodle shell. Flex can link to any open content on the internet, and can be used to host scanned copies of chapters or articles, in line with Australian Copyright Law. For more information about  Flex and how to use it, see the Copright Agency Flex website.