What type of materials I can share with my students in my Moodle course?

You can link to any of the e-Resources available through the Library systems, being held in any of the databases, ebooks, electronic journals and audiovisual materials.

If you require extracts from books that are not available in electronic format, you can ask the Library Team to scan the require content for you. 

Any resources that you find online need to be assessed regarding the legality of that resource being available online. If you are linking to resources that have been uploaded in the internet illegally in the first place, you will be also infringing copyright yourself just by linking to them.

Can I upload reading materials to my Moodle courses?

If you want to upload reading materials in an electronic form to your Moodle course, the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) allows you to do this, but there are specific procedures and restrictions that you should be aware of in advance.

The CLA licence allows the University of Greenwich to make available copies of items available in the library collection, subject to certain limits and specifications. The material can be text only, text and image or an image disembedded from the text.

If you want to distribute reading material to your students electronically you need to make a request to Library Services using the Request for Digital Copy form 

Why do I need to request a scan from the Library instead of scanning the material myself? 

There are a number of requirements relating to the scanning licence, and due to these restrictions all requests must be submitted via the Digital Copy form and processed by the Library’s Scanning Team. The Scanning Team in the Library will:

• Check your digitisation request and advise if it can be scanned under the CLA licence. 

• Process and track your Copyright Fee Paid copy if you are requesting for material to be scanned and this is not part of the library collection. 

• Scan the content and make it available to you via a hyperlink. 

Can I upload articles from Library databases into my Moodle course? 

If the content you want to make accessible to students already exists in electronic format, you can provide a hyperlink to that content, article or ebook, on your Moodle site. Please do not upload PDFs of articles or e-book chapters from the Library eResources collection - this is an infringement of our licenses’ terms and conditions. When linking to eResources, provide your students with a hyperlink.  

Can I upload videos to Moodle? 

On your Moodle site you may link to audio-visual materials that are online but if you want to upload or embed a hyperlink to this content to Moodle you must seek the permission of the Copyright owner. 

One way of providing students with audio-visual content is using Box of Broadcasts (BoB), which can be accessed directly via the Portal. You can link or embed a hyperlink to BoB from Moodle. Our licence for the use of this resource does not allow for content to be downloaded locally and them uploaded into the VLE. It’s also important to note that use of any BoB material within Moodle is currently restricted to UK access only; the licence does not permit viewing from students based overseas.

Can I link to YouTube videos from my Moodle course? 

Bear in mind that much material on YouTube is posted by third parties without permission. If rights holders raise an objection to their material being used in this way it is likely to be removed from the site. If you link to or embed YouTube clips make sure they have been posted there by the person or organisation to whom that material belongs. If in doubt, judge how professional the video looks, or whether it has been posted by a recognised body (e.g. a broadcaster, an educational establishment).

What about DVDs? 

The law allows commercially produced DVDs to be shown in lectures for educational purposes. No more of the DVD than is necessary for the purpose should be shown. A digital copy of a DVD may not be placed on a network (even a secure one like Moodle) without permission from the rightsholder. 

What are Open Educational Resources and what can I do with them? 

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use and adapt. Examples of OER include: course materials, syllabus lectures, assignments, classroom activities, pedagogical materials and many more resources contained in digital media collections across the globe. These are published under a Creative Commons License. 

What is a Creative Commons License? 

A Creative Commons License allows creators (authors, photographers, artists, etc.) to permit re-use of their work, sometimes subject to conditions, and subject to acknowledgement.

Further information, including about the different licences, is available on the Creative Commons website.

How can I make sure I don’t infringe copyright? 

You can make sure you do not infringe copyright by ensuring that if you are using any type of material you have the permission of the copyright owner. Remember, linking to material on websites is usually permissible if the site is reputable (e.g. not hosting published papers without publishers' permission).

Who can I contact if I have further questions? 

If you are not sure about uploading specific content to your Moodle course, or if you want further information about Copyright, please contact Irene Barranco Garcia, who is the Copyright Manager in Library Services.