Documentation:Intellectual Property Office/Copyright Clearing Procedure

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General Information

Requests for copyright review come into the copyright@tru.ca mailbox.

The Rights and Permissions Supervisor (“Supervisor”)

a. assigns the file to one of the IPO team (“Assignee”) by email to the Assignee

b. responds to the requestor confirming receipt of the request and who has been assigned to the request.

The Assignee

1. creates a JIRA record for the request (see JIRA procedure) which includes the course acronym and a comment as to what is required of the IPO. Pertinent information such as contact information of the requestor and copyright holder should be included in the JIRA record. The record will indicate if the request is Face to Face/Campus or Open Learning.
2. creates a D4P2 record for any Open Learning Course Requests (see D4P2 procedure)
3. will prioritize the new request with consideration to other requests and begin work on the request as soon as it is appropriate.
4. reviews all course materials to ensure that all third party material in the course is identified. (See clearing procedures for Face to Face/Campus and Open Learning for details of procedure). The Assignee will use the method set out below as Clearing of Third Party Content to determine the status of each piece of third party content. The content may be tracked in a spread sheet which is then attached to the JIRA record and filed in O drive.
5. upon clearing material, the Assignee will assign IPO numbers (from the IPO File number assignment sheet) for each source of third party content and record the same by creating the appropriate Filemaker records (see Filemaker procedure).
6. will update the JIRA record making separate records for Permissions, Fair Dealing and Access Copyright modes as described in the JIRA procedures. Ongoing permission requests are monitored through the JIRA record until complete.
7. makes an entry in the Tasks portion of the Copyright@tru.ca mailbox of the expiry date/renewal date for the permission as applicable once a permission is received.
8. upon documentation of all third party materials and receipt of permissions, the Assignee will notify the requestor by email following the procedures outlined for Face to Face/Campus and OL Courses.
9. when notified by the Rights and Permissions Supervisor that the assigned course has been opened for registration, will review the active course content with the "Current" records in Filemaker to ensure that all third party material has been properly attributed. Once reviewed the assignee will update the "Courses distributed to team" worksheet with the date the review was done and each of the JIRA records for the course in the Description box so that it is clear that review has been completed.

 

Guidelines for Clearing of Third Party Content

Once identified, all third-party content should be cleared by one of the following methods, in the following order of priority:

a. Public Domain or Insubstantial Amount

i. A work generally enters Public Domain upon 50 years following the death of the author; text excerpts of 150 words or less are generally considered insubstantial

b. For materials obtained from a website:

i. Creative Commons - there is a CC license specifically authorizing use, and it is reasonably certain that the work has been made available by the rights-holder for the purposes of sharing material under specific terms and conditions

ii. Site License- a license is provide to use the material on the website.

iii. Section 30.04- The Work is freely available online, and there is either no clearly visible notice prohibiting use and it is reasonably certain that the work has been made available by the rights-holder

c. Educational Exceptions under the Copyright Act

d. Fair Dealing

i. The work can be considered Fair Dealing under the current TRU Fair Dealing Policy or

ii. upon application of the test from CCH (refer to Supervisor)

Elements of the CCH test to be aware of are: purpose of use, nature of use, scope of use, alternatives to use, the nature of the third party work and the effect of the use on the third party work.

e. “Blanket” permission/license

i. Work may be used pursuant to blanket permission from publisher or rights-holder

f. Contact Rights-holder

i. Assignee should use a precedent letter where possible to contact the rights-holder of the requested work.

ii. The Request and response of rights-holder should be tracked in JIRA.

iii. Where a negative/no response is received within 2 weeks, the request should be referred back to the Supervisor.

iv. Where payment for a permission or a signed agreement is required, the Assignee will refer to the Supervisor.

 

Face to Face/Campus Procedure

1. The Assignee should contact the Printshop for copies of the PDF files of course materials if one has not been provided in the original request.

2. The Assignee will review the course materials using the general procedure and Guidelines for Clearing Third Party Content above.

3. If any material which appears not to be the property of the instructor or TRU has been identified, the Assignee will contact the faculty member and request that the material be either identified, replaced or removed.

4. The Assignee will notify the following parties by email upon the clearing of copyright for the course:

a) Instructor

b) Printshop- include a credit information page (bibliography page)as an attachment

c) Bookstore (identify any materials for which permission royalties should be recovered)

Open Learning Procedure

New Courses and Major Revisions– Instructional Designer Lead

1. Files and list of requests are supplied to the Intellectual Property Office by the Instructional Designer (ID).

2. The Assignee works with the Instructional Designer to clear the third party materials or suggest alternative materials or methods where appropriate. This usually happens in the development phase of the course.

3. In the case of a Major Revision, the Assignee will generate a copyright report and forward the copyright report to the ID requesting the ID identify any materials that will not be used in the revised course materials. When the revised course is launched the Assignee will turn these records to not in use.

4. The Assignee reviews the course material when it is submitted to Editing to confirm the resources and their uses, and follows the General procedure for clearing third party copyright.

5. If the course material has not been provided and cannot be located, the Assignee should contact Olproduction or the Editing team to request access to the course material.

6. If any material which appears not to be the property of the course writer or TRU is identified, the Assignee will contact the ID and request that the material be either identified, replaced or removed.

7. Once a review has been completed and the Assignee is confident that all third party material has been identified, credit lines have been received and all entries are recorded in Filemaker, the Assignee will issue a copyright report to OLProduction and Curriculum Services.

Minor Revisions – Lead by OLFM or Curriculum Services

1. These are usually updates of course materials to new text book editions or sometimes to a new text book entirely when a book has gone out of print. Most of the content of the course is retained. Items may be a journal article to replace a website which has gone down etc.

2. New permissions are assigned an IPO number and recorded in Filemaker.

3. The Assignee checks Filemaker for any permissions which may be tied to the use of the adopted text.

4. The Assignee creates a copyright report from Filemaker.

Copyright Report Requests from Production

1. Often Production will request a copyright report when one member of their team begins working on a course.

2. If a copyright report has been prepared within the six months previous to the request, it may be provided by e-mail.

3. If the most recent copyright report on file is more than six months old, the Assignee should request the course materials from production and should undertake a complete review of those materials before providing a copyright report.

4. In either case, the assignee should be prepared to answer any questions or concerns the production team may have regarding third party material in the course.

Third Party Copyright Thresholds

In an effort to track development costs, guidelines have been developed regarding the incorporation of third party materials into course content. Two threshold tests have been developed. The first is Economic and the second is Pedagogical/Technological.

Economic Threshold ( Calculated per Course as the rate per year)

1. Under $500.00 total cost of permissions per year - Proceed with permissions.
2. Between $500.00 and $1,000.00 total cost of permissions per year - Advise the IP Supervisor by email. IP Supervisor will follow up with ID, SME, Directors and other affected departments.
3. Over $1,000.00 total cost of permissions per year for new courses - Advise Director of Curriculum Services by email and copy IP Supervisor on email.
4. Over $1,000.00 total cost of permissions per year for Revisions or Maintenance - Advise Associate Director of Curriculum Services by email and copy IP Supervisor on email.
5. Permission renewals for courses in Revision or Maintenance - consult with the Associate Director of Curriculum Services regarding the appropriate term for renewal.

Pedagogical/Technological Threshold

In addition to the actual economic cost of a permission, the value of that permission to the course content must be considered. In some instances the cost of the permission outweighs the value to the course content. Determination of value to the course content is based on a number of different factors such as:

1. Pedagogical value:
2. Technological implications of including the material in the course - is it the right medium, can permissions be obtained for the expected life of the media piece being created or is there a better means of achieving the same purpose;
3. Do the third party materials contribute to a specific purpose within the course?
4. Quality of the third party material in contrast with cost of permission;
5. Quantity of third party materials in the course and their role within the course;
6. Type of item requested;
7. Consideration of the material use - ie reading materials, illustration;
8. Future costs of course maintenance may influence the manner in which the material is included and if the material is included;

The Instructional Designer in the case of new courses, or Curriculum Services in the case of Maintenance, should be advised of the cost of the permission and a request made with regard to proceeding with the permission if it appears that the permission may exceed one of the thresholds.