Copyright
Ask a Librarian
Canvas
Faculty may use our digital learning environment (Canvas) to share online materials.
Some basic guidelines:
- Faculty are responsible for conducting a fair use analysis of each work to determine if it can be used without seeking permission.
- All materials must support course-related teaching, scholarship, or research.
- The course syllabi must contain a statement notifying students of using copyrighted materials.
- Whenever possible, provide a link to an article, web site or other material that is available on the Web rather than copying it onto your web page.
- No more than "reasonable and limited portions" (approximately 10%) of a work may be digitized for use in an online course. The online course must have access controls to limit the material to the students in the course.
- Always acknowledge the author of any work that you use. Include the copyright statement from the work.
- Repeatedly putting the same article in Canvas, semester after semester, is not recommended by our legal counsel--generally this goes against the 4th fair use factor--effect on the market.
- Do not use Canvas as a substitute for coursepacks. This would also have a deleterious effect on the market. The University Bookstore can assist you with preparing coursepacks.
- Many copyrighted works can be accessed through the library's database licenses. Be sure to check to see if you can link to a work in a library database before you seek permission or pay a permission fee. Our reference librarians can assist you.
- Items obtained from another library may not be used in an online course.
- Digitized materials should be removed from the online course at the end of the semester.
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UW-Green Bay Fair Use ChecklistUse this checklist to help decide whether you can use a specific material in your course under the fair use exception.
Web Sites
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TEACH Act GuidelinesSection of the University of Texas Libraries' Copyright Crash Course
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Using the SPARC Author Addendum to secure your rights as the author of a journal articleA legal instrument that modifies the publisher’s agreement and allows you to keep key rights to your articles
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Does the university own content I created on the job?UW System Policy on Ownership of Employee-Created Instructional Materials (scroll to bottom)
- Last Updated: Jun 12, 2025 9:28 AM
- URL: https://library.uwgb.edu/copyright
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