Faculty & Staff Resources at Kistler Library

It can be difficult to determine what you can use in class and what you cannot.

Fair Use allows teachers to use copyright materials in certain situations.

As defined by Baylor University, the four fair use factors are as follows:

1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. The nature of the copyrighted work, such as whether the work is fiction or non-fiction, published or unpublished;
3. The amount of the work used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, such as using a poem in its entirety, or using one chapter from a long book;
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for the copyrighted work.

Below are several guides and resources to help you understand these trick questions.

Factors of Fair Use

Copyright & Fair Use Guidelines for Teachers

Copyright Basics for Teachers

Reproduction and Copyright

Whenever possible, linking to Library resources is always best practice, rather than downloading and re-uploading the files. If you must upload a copy of an article to your course, however, please follow these protocols:

1. ONLY reproduce the work in Canvas. Avoid emailing the work directly to students, and do not under any circumstances upload it to a location or website that is available to the general public, without a Rosemont login.
2. Use as little of the original work as possible. Articles rather than full journal issues, chapters rather than full books, etc.
3. Include full citation information for any work you reproduce. This information should, if possible, be embedded in the filename, or otherwise inextricable from the document itself.
4. Include a copyright notice for any work you reproduce. This notice should acknowledge the copyright holder of the original work, state your intention to reproduce the work only for educational purposes, and prohibit further reproduction of the work beyond personal use.

These principles also apply to any resources from your personal collection that you may wish to scan and upload to your course. Resources shared with students for educational purposes should follow the guidelines for Fair Use at all times. For more information on how to determine Fair Use, see the Fair Use notice from the United States Copyright Office.

Villanova University's Office of the Vice President and General Counsel also has a Copyright guide available. The guide includes information on the TEACH Act, which has implications for resources in distance learning. If you have questions or need further information on copyright issues, please contact a librarian.

Click here to visit a Copyright Guide for Librarians written by the US Copyright Office at the Library of Congress.