- Always ask permission before publishing a copy of anything online. Found a chapter in a book you want your students to read? Without securing permission or paying licensing fees, you are not usually permitted to photocopy the chapter and distribute it to your students nor are you permitted to scan it and publish it on the web.
-
You can choose to pursue securing these permissions on your own if you wish. However, because libraries operate under slightly different rules than individuals, it is OK to ask the University Library to put the chapter up as an electronic reserve for your students. If the Library does so, the Library has assumed the responsibility for ascertaining the identity of the copyright holder, obtaining permission for use and paying the licensing fee. For more information about placing material on reserve, link to [http://www.lib.udel.edu/ud/reserve/].
- Does the copyright holder make the information available on the web? If so, it is usually OK for you to link to it (unless the copyright holder expressly forbids it). By linking to the material, you avoid the issue of unauthorized hard copy or digital distribution.
- If you do secure permission to use copyrighted material on a web page, publish the material for a limited time period. That is, publish it for the semester, then remove it when the semester ends.
- Restrict access to the materials that are copyrighted, so the general public can't access the materials. Instructions for this process are on the University's central web server [http://www.udel.edu/topics/internet/WWW/restricting.html]. The PRESENT, located in IT-User Services, also has a program that can assist with this process [http://www. udel.edu/present/htaccess/htaccess.html].
