Copyright: Blackboard and Course Reserves

The George Washington University is committed to promoting practices that are in compliance with federal copyright law. The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to GW faculty on how to utilize Blackboard while remaining compliant with copyright law. It is important to note that posting an item on a password-protected site like Blackboard does not exempt a faculty member from his or her responsibilities to adhere to copyright law.

Durable links are an alternative to posting files to Blackboard.  Durable links are hyperlinks to electronic resources (e.g. journal articles, books and book chapters, databases, etc.) which are available as part of Himmelfarb Library's online collections.  

Durable links allow faculty to connect students to required and recommended readings and do not require faculty to obtain copyright permission.

To learn more about durable links including how to create these links, please consult:

Copyright and Blackboard

The following are general guidelines that GW faculty should always consider when posting material on Blackboard:

1. Faculty shall only post materials onto Blackboard for a non-profit, educational use. 
2. Faculty must include the proper attributions and citations for all posted materials.
3. Faculty should include the following Copyright Notice on their Blackboard sites:

   a.   COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 10) governs the rights attributed to owners of copyrighted work.  Under certain circumstances, educational institutions may provide copies of copyrighted works to students.  The copies may not be copied nor used for any other purpose besides private study, scholarship, or research.  Users should not provide electronic copies of any materials provided on this course’s Blackboard site to unauthorized users.  If a user fails to comply with Fair Use restrictions, he/she may be held liable for copyright infringement.  No further transmission or electronic distribution is permitted. 

4. Access to course materials on Blackboard should be limited to the faculty and students currently registered for that particular course.  Once the course is completed, students should no longer have access to any posted course materials.
5. Faculty must use best efforts, where feasible, to retrieve permission from the copyright owners of any material posted. 

Posting Copyrighted Material without Permission

1. Faculty should never post the entirety of a copyrighted work without the copyright owner's express permission. For example, faculty should not upload an entire book onto Blackboard.
2. Whenever possible, faculty should post a weblink ("link") to a website instead of posting a copy of the website's content onto Blackboard. Consult the Himmelfarb Library Research Guide "Linking to Electronic Resources: Creating Durable Links" for assistance.
3. If linking to a website is not possible, faculty should consider adding the material to E-Reserves and then posting a link to the E-Reserves material onto Blackboard. For inquiries related to adding material to E-Reserves and/or linking to material on E-Reserves, please contact Kathy Lyons at mlbrsv@gwu.edu or 202-994-1829.
4. If linking to a website or E-Reserves is not feasible, utilize the following chart which provides guidance on the use of copyrighted materials without permission.