Study Strategies--Public Domain?
- February 2, 2009 @ 2:01pmLiz Barksdale says:A dean I work with at our community college wants to give study skills sessions to different groups of students, not all of them affiliated with our school. At least some of these sessions will be for profit. His question was whether he could use note-taking and study skill models without getting permission. He wants to talk about the Cornell method of note-taking, OK4R and SQ3R (This one adapted from a 1961 book). He's citing any particular person's work he refers to for class materials. We just wanted to double check that giving info about these established methods is okay without asking for permission, especially if you're charging for sessions. Thanks!
- February 23, 2009 @ 4:41pmdan says:These are definitely protected by copyright. Making copies for face-to-face instruction can be justified as fair use in a non-profit educational setting. Once you start charging, you should think about what you are charging for. If charges are for copying expenses only, you are still on reasonable footing. If you are charging to create revenue to pay for your office's other expenses beyond these classes, you start to lose that non-commercial feel.
- February 24, 2009 @ 10:14amksmith says:Remember that copyright does not protect ideas, only the expression of ideas. If you dean is just "giving information" about these systems using his own words, but not reproducing or distributing any protected expression, there is no copyright problem at all. If he is copying materials to hand out, you should do a fair use analysis and get permission for any materials that do not fall within a good faith fair use analysis
- February 25, 2009 @ 12:03pmRuthDukelow says:Also - to add to ksmith's post. If you are unsure of whether copying materials would fall under fair use and/or do not have time to obtain permission, you can always provide students with URLs to link to the original materials - either on the "free" web or to materials in commercial databases licensed by your institution (as permitted by your institution's license with the vendor).
- February 25, 2009 @ 12:08pmRuthDukelow says:Oops - I should probably qualify my "you can always" statement above. If the owner of the copyright notifies you that your link is to an infringing site, you may have to take down your link under DMCA provisions.
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