Protection
Section 6
You should make sure that your copyright statement forms part of your
terms and conditions and that users have to accept those terms and
conditions before they can access your material. This will mean that people
cannot later claim that they did not know what they were not allowed
to do with your work.
Licences
You could also set up actual licences on your institution's website so that
someone wanting to use your materials could do so, but only if they agreed
to the terms of the institution's licence. These would be more binding than
your users agreeing to your copyright statement as part of your terms and
conditions. You would usually want to make sure that the licence would
provide that those taking a licence:
n
could only use (including downloading) the materials for educational
purposes and certainly not for commercial purposes
n
could not alter or modify your materials except with your prior consent
n
had to acknowledge their source when using the materials.
If your main concern is the dissemination of your work to as many people
as possible, you could use a Creative Commons type licence to give open,
free access to your work.
You could also consider placing your work in a learning object repository,
for example JORUM (www.jorum.ac.uk). Under the JORUM system, you can
share your academic materials with other people in UK higher and further
education institutions. Check your employer is happy if they own the
copyright. As a user, you can download, modify or annotate any materials
that you access. However, you can only use the materials for
non-commercial purposes.
Consult with the relevant professionals in your institution for guidance.
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