Complying with Copyright,
Dave Harper, KPE
Martin Warkentin, UFV Copyright Librarian, came to speak to the Science Faculty Council meeting earlier this year (I was there representing Health Sciences). Teaching online courses I was concerned about the notion of a “copyright cop” lurking about in my courses, looking for non-compliance. However, some weeks later at the BC Campus Open Text Summit I had the chance to chat further with Martin about his responsibilities. I was quickly reassured that his role was to cooperate with and assist faculty, not to oversee and certainly not in any furtive or obsequious manner.
Reassured, I asked Martin to have a thorough look at my recently completed KPE 160 online course (Contemporary Health Issues), stripped of student IDs and input. This course involves much student engagement (quizzes, discussions, group and individual assignments, etc.) and the total material he had to peruse amounted to about 7MB of digital documents. Martin completed the assessment in a timely and professional manner and provided me with thorough, written feedback.
I was please to discover that there were only a few instances of copyright non-compliance that needed to be addressed. Rather than linking to documents online (I highly recommend this) I had downloaded some articles (e.g. NY Times) to my computer and then uploaded them to the course (incomplete or inaccurate citation). I had also linked to a YouTube video from a CBC piece that should have been linked directly to the CBC original. There were a few other suggestions for improvement provided as well.
Overall I found this to be a very positive experience. Not only did I discover that, for the most part, I had gone about developing content correctly, I now have the knowledge to make similar changes in other courses and the satisfaction of knowing that this course is now 100% compliant. Martin also provided correct links for the citations and videos so that the amount of time I needed to invest to bring my course into compliance was less than 10 minutes. So, no need to fear the copyright police: he’s your friend. Thanks Martin.