Compiling teaching material for use within UU
When compiling educational materials for use within Utrecht University, you must know how to avoid copyright infringement when reusing sources. The inclusion of sources may also entail costs. The flowchart for the reuse of sources in teaching material helps you to reuse sources in educational material in accordance with the regulations.
Flowchart for the reuse of sources in teaching material
The flowchart (PDF) shows you the options for reusing texts or images from a (digital) book or journal in your teaching material for Utrecht University.
When including copyrighted work in your teaching materials, for all types of sources the rule of thumb is to always:
- state the source
- if possible, place a permanent hyperlink to the publication, as opposed to including the entire text or image itself.
It is always permitted to refer to a digital publication in the collection of the university library with a permanent hyperlink. If a (digital) publication is not yet available in the collection, you may suggest a purchase.
Using the flowchart
If you cannot or do not want to use a permanent hyperlink, check the flowchart (pdf). It guides you through the questions you need to ask yourself to determine whether reusing a text or image is permitted, and under what conditions:
1. Is the work open access and does it have an open licence, such as Creative Commons?
Open access (OA) provides free, digital access to academic publications. Open access publications may often be included in educational material free of charge. Sometimes, the copyright holder must grant permission for reuse beforehand. The conditions for reuse may be found in the open licence that applies to the work. A commonly used open licence is that of Creative Commons (CC). Preferably use material with a CC-0 or CC-BY licence. If no licence is applied to an open access article, you should check with the author or publisher if any conditions for reuse apply.
Check the Creative Commons website to know how to reuse CC-licenced material.
Read more about open access and open licences
2. Does Utrecht University have an agreement with the publisher?
If the source you want to reuse for educational purposes is not available open access, Utrecht University may have an agreement with the publisher. There are agreements about the reuse of texts from electronic journals and e-books.
Please note:
- Conditions may change. The list is regularly updated. When in doubt about the possibilities, please contact the library.
- When you reuse material based on this list, we ask you to place the following notice in your document:
Reuse permitted according to agreement with publisher.
Can you meet the conditions of the Easy Access Agreement?
The Easy Access Agreement is an arrangement between the Dutch universities (UNL) and academic publishers, represented by Stichting UvO (Publishing Organisation for Education Licences), about the inclusion of certain types of sources in educational material used within the university. As a result of this agreement, universities no longer have to separately report or pay for the use of so-called short and medium length inclusions before publication. Instead they pay a fixed amount to Stichting UvO.
If the answer to the above three questions is no, you must request permission for the inclusion of the source in your teaching material, either through your faculty from Stichting UvO, or from the publisher. They charge a fee per page per course participant.
Questions
Not all types of sources are covered by the Easy Access Agreement. When in doubt about the use of a particular source in your teaching (material), please contact us.