Copyright guidelines for using published materials in LMS activities

It is important that any material you make available on the LMS for activities such as Perusall or FeedbackFruits is copyright compliant.

eJournal articles and eBooks

eJournal articles and eBooks from library databases can only be made available on the LMS if the database licence allows us to do so. Many licence agreements only permit linking. For information on how to check a licence agreement to see if an article or book chapter can be uploaded to the LMS, please review the Copyright Office guide: How to check licence conditions for e-journals. Or contact the Copyright Office or Readings Online for assistance.

The University has a copyright licence that allows us to provide copies of print material such as book chapters and journal articles to students electronically. We can also make this material available in LMS activities, subject to the following conditions:

  • The reading should be uploaded to Readings Online first to be checked for copyright compliance. When adding readings in Readings Online, please include a note to the Library outlining how the resource will be used. For example – “For use on Perusall” or “For use on FeedbackFruits Interactive Document”.
  • For books, only 10% of the total number of pages or one chapter can be uploaded.
  • For journal articles, you may use one article from a journal issue or two or more articles from the same issue if they are on the same topic.
  • Access should be restricted to students.
  • The reading must include a full citation and a copyright warning notice.

If you require more material than allowed under this limit, please contact the Copyright Office for further advice.

Websites

The University’s copyright licence allows us to upload 10% of the number of words from a webpage (if it is an HTML document), or 10% of the total number of pages or one chapter if the website has pages (e.g. a PDF or Word document).

You can also check the terms of use or copyright information on a website to see if the copyright owner allows content from their website to be re-used. For example, many websites, particularly government websites, licence their content under Creative Commons. Under Creative Commons, material can be easily and freely reproduced and reused.

Other types of material

For more information about whether you can upload other types of material, see limits on using copyright material for teaching or contact the Copyright Office.

Further resources

This guide was last updated 12 Mar 2024.
Please report any errors or omissions in this guide by submitting an LMS support request.

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