Copyright for Faculty & Staff

Many articles, especially news articles, can be found on websites. Be aware that some sites may be behind paywalls and that what you may be seeing may not be openly available to others.

You may:

• Share a link to the article on the website
• If the article is openly licensed, you may reuse according to the license terms

Without the permission of the copyright holder, you may not:

• Cut and paste article text into a separate document
• Save and share article as a PDF

Before using:

• Refer to the terms of use section of the website for instructions on reuse
• Check the Library catalogue for the article, including permitted use information
• Visit the original source of the article if the search results directly link to a downloadable file (PDF, Word doc)
• Do not violate or circumvent any subscriptions, paywalls or clearly visible restrictions on reuse
• Cite the work including title, author, source and license (if applicable) for the article in your teaching materials

If you require more assistance assess the copyright status and reuse permissions for an online resource, please contact copyright@ontariotechu.ca 

Online repositories (ArXiv.org, Institutional)

You may:

• Share links to the article in the repository
• If a pdf is available, download and share the article to students through Canvas

Without the permission of copyright holder, you may not:

• Revise, alter or edit the article or remove any copyright statements
• Share without proper attribution including the title, author, source and licence (if applicable)

Before using:

• Check for licence information about the article

If you require more assistance assess the copyright status and reuse permissions for an online resource, please contact copyright@ontariotechu.ca 

Academic social networking sites

These popular sites are for-profit platforms, earning revenue from the materials posted to the platform through advertising. Take care to confirm that any material posted on these sites is legally shared by the copyright holder, noting that authors of journal articles often forfeit their copyright under most publishing agreements with journal publishers. In most cases, it is the journal that holds the copyright.

Some common examples of academic social networking sites: 

• Research Gate
• Academia.edu
• Social Science Research Network 

Before using:

• Visit the original source of the article, the journal publisher homepage, and check the terms of use
• Make sure the article is legally uploaded to the website by the copyright holder
• Do not violate or circumvent any subscriptions or paywalls
• Cite the source, including the title, author, source and licence (if applicable) for the article is included in your teaching materials
• Check that there is no clearly visible restriction that prohibits sharing or reuse

Refer to the library’s licence summary for information included in the catalogue entry for the article. To learn more about how you share articles in your classroom, see the Helpful Links section below.