 |
Under the “fair use” provision of copyright law, a person may make limited use of another author’s work without asking permission. As noted elsewhere in this guide:
"There's no one right answer as to what constitutes a "fair use" of a particular copyrighted work. The answer varies from situation to situation."
Posting an item to Canvas does not exempt an instructor from copyright regulations. Therefore, instructors are encouraged to consult these guidelines. In order of preference, these include:
| Item | Probably Allowed | Not allowed |
| Web site containing copyrighted material | Link to the web site in Canvas | Copying and pasting the information into Canvas |
| Copyrighted web image | Must be educational in nature; display in Canvas for one semester | Repeated use over multiple semesters |
| Article from a library database | Direct linking to article allowed | Copying and pasting the article into Canvas |
| Scanned copyrighted image | Must be educational in nature; display in Canvas for one semester | Repeated use over multiple semesters |
| Scanned chapter from a book |
5% of the total work if in-print, 10% of the total work if out-of-print--allowed for only one semester |
More than the allotted percents or repeated use over multiple semesters |
| Scanned article from a journal, trade publication, or magazine | A single article for one semester | Multiple articles from the same publication or repeated use over multiple semesters |
| Audio files | No more than 30 seconds without permission | Repeated use over multiple semesters |
| Video files | 10% or three minutes, whichever is less |
Repeated use over multiple semesters |
Persistent Links, or PermaLinks, to Content in Library Databases are Always Copyright Compliant
If you copy a database link from your Internet browser's url bar into Canvas or another browser, that link will eventually stop working because it is a dynamic, non-static link. To eliminate this problem, most database companies now offer Persistent Links, or PermaLinks, for their articles. These are stable links that will consistently take students to a particular full-text article in a library database, though they may be asked to login with the MyNWACC credentials before they can view the full-text.
Here are two examples of permalinks from two different databases. The impotant part of the links are in bold. For Ebsco databases it includes a customer id number, and for Academic Video Online, it includes a proxy prefix.
Ebsco ebook example
Academic Video Online Streaming Film example
https://video-alexanderstreet-com.eu1.proxy.openathens.net/p/vQZ0z4mg5
Need help locating a persistent link, or permalink, in a library database? Email library@nwacc.edu for assistance.
