Academic Council Endorses Electronic Content Guidelines

Faculty encouraged to make fair use decisions when posting content

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Durham, NC -- Duke University’s Academic Council endorsed guidelines on copyright and fair use as they relate to electronic course content at its February meeting. The action is part of a comprehensive university program that addresses issues of copyright compliance and the role of intellectual property rights in education.

The guidelines were presented to the council by University Librarian and Vice Provost for Library Affairs Deborah Jakubs and Scholarly Communications Officer Kevin Smith, who first spoke to the council about the need for guidelines in February 2007.

Endorsement of the Copyright Guidelines for Electronic Course Content is the first step in copyright education for faculty that the University Counsel’s Office and the Office of Scholarly Communications in the University Libraries will direct.

Since then, Associate University Counsel Henry Cuthbert and Smith have begun meeting with divisional deans and departmental heads to evaluate faculty needs and to develop strategies for effective education about best practices for delivering electronic course content.

“Digital technologies now make it possible to offer content in an easy and convenient format, so it is increasingly important that an understanding of copyright responsibilities accompany use of that content,” Cuthbert said.

The endorsed guidelines and the new educational programs, along with policies and programs already in place at Duke, are in line with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s expectations of non-profit educational institutions, Cuthbert said. The act requires such institutions to provide users with informational materials describing and promoting compliance with copyright laws.

“We’re emphasizing the importance of good-faith decisions about fair use whenever faculty want to use copyrighted material as electronic content for their courses, as well as the need to seek permission or place print items on traditional reserves when fair use does not apply,” Smith said.

The new guidelines, along with other policies and educational materials about copyright at Duke, can be found here.