Copyright and VLEs

I sometimes get asked what materials can I upload to a VLE, are there any materials I can’t upload due to copyright.

Basically what I advise is do not upload any copyrighted material unless you have the rights, a licence or permission from the copyright holder to do so.

Sometimes you will need to check multiple permissions for a single resource as the text, images and diagrams may have different rights holders.

Staffordshire University have a (obviously HE centric) guide on copyright and VLEs which gives a more detailed explanation of the issue.

There is also the JISC Collections activity which I wrote for them which also covers some VLE issues amongst others.

Copyright is a complex issue and there are a lot of myths about copyright and education. If you are not sure about something, check don’t assume it will be okay.

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