October 30, 2009 @ 12:10pm
As Copyright Officer for a Community College, faculty have asked if it would be considered within Fair Use to scan a chapter of a required textbook to post to their course management system class site. This would only be during the first week or two of an academic quarter, to enable students to complete their assignments until they receive their financial aid checks and can purchase their textbooks. Students often do not receive their financial aid checks until after the quarter has already begun.
Thank you for any guidance about this!
Lauri
October 30, 2009 @ 12:10pm
Should be okay -- as long as it's limited to the students in that class. One chapter is generally considered within fair use limits for electronic reserves. You might also want to think about putting a physical copy of the book on reserve in the library.
October 30, 2009 @ 12:10pm
A similar question came up at our college. A prof wanted to post a scanned copy of a journal article - not the link to the article, but a copy of the actual article, in the course management system class site. It would be for only his class - is that fair use?
October 30, 2009 @ 12:10pm
Yes, that's fair use. But if you are worried about it at all, ask your library to put it up on the reserve system instead of the professor putting it on the course management system. He can them provide a link to the library's reserve page.
October 30, 2009 @ 12:10pm
As long as it is not on a public page it should be ok.
October 30, 2009 @ 12:10pm
sacsp, you may want to take a look at the materials on e-reserve in our wiki to get a better understanding of the laws regarding library exceptions for copyright. There's no reason to treat a textbook any differently than a regular book. A workbook, yes -- that's what's called a "consumable" and we don't put those on reserve. ut not a regular textbook.