Open Educational Resources (OER)
Questions?
If you have any questions, or if you would like more information, please contact:
Ellen Phillips - Director, Open Educational Resources & Intellectual Property, archives@snhu.edu
License Information
All original content in this guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 This link opens in a new window International License. 3rd-party content including, but not limited to images and linked items, are subject to their own license terms.
Fair Use
The Fair Use Doctrine is outlined in Title 17, Chapter 1, Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Code. The Fair Use Doctrine allows for limited use of copyrighted materials without the creator’s permission. Typical examples of use that may fall under the fair use defense include commentary, criticism, news, research, teaching, scholarship, or citation. However, it is important to note that just because a copy of a protected work is made or used for educational purposes, it does not automatically fall under the Fair Use Doctrine. Rather, courts use a variety of factors in determining whether any given circumstance constitutes fair use, including:
- The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for a nonprofit educational purpose;
- The nature of the copyrighted work;
- The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The following links offer additional information on the Fair Use Doctrine:
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SNHU Fair Use EvaluatorSNHU has created a tool to help you evaluate the relative strength of a potential fair use argument.
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Cornell Checklist for Conducting a Fair Use Analysis This link opens in a new windowCornell has prepared a worksheet that can be used to help apply the Fair Use Doctrine.
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Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians This link opens in a new windowUnited States Copyright Office's guide to reproducing works by others in an educational setting.
Good Practices for Fair Use Amounts
- A chapter from a book (never copy entire books).
- An article from a periodical or newspaper.
- A short story, essay or poem
- A chart, drawing, picture.
*Remember, the Fair Use Doctrine does not cover you if you take the "heart" of the work.
In general, fair use arguments can be made when limited amounts of copyrighted material are used for educational purposes, the audience for which is limited to students enrolled in a particular class (by providing access to the materials in a password-protected environment, such as Moodle), and offered in formats that are not susceptible to further copying/downloading.
Providing links to online materials (rather than copying them) and favoring streaming versions (rather than a downloadable format) of audiovisual material is also a safe call because no copies are being made.
Obtaining Permission
To obtain permission to use a copyrighted work, the copyright holder must be contacted. You can do this yourself or you can pay the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. to obtain it for you.
Here are some resources on how to determine if a work is protected by copyright and how to identify who the rights holder is.
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Copyright Public Records Portal This link opens in a new windowSearch the U.S. Copyright office to see if a work was registered in the United States. Note that works do not necessarily have to be registered or published in order to be protected by copyright.
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Sherpa Romeo This link opens in a new windowAn online resource that aggregates and presents publisher and journal open access policies from around the world. If you have a journal article you can check to see if it is available under an open access (OA) agreement.
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Stanford's Copyright Renewal Database This link opens in a new windowA searchable index of the copyright renewal records for books published in the US between 1923 and 1963.
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The Authors Registry This link opens in a new windowA not-for-profit clearinghouse for payments to authors, receiving royalties from organizations and distributing them to U.S. authors.
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Third-Party Permissions and How to Clear Them This link opens in a new window"This guide provides information about the permissions process, with a special focus on textual permissions and image permission and highlighting the different issues involved with these two types of permission where applicable."