Copyright Office

Using Journal Articles for Educational Purposes

For a general information about copyright see Overview of Copyright. For general information about copyright & journal articles see Literary Works and Journal & Periodical Publications

The Copyright Act allows the University to reproduce and/or communicate journal or newspaper articles for educational purposes. Communicate means to make the item available online or to email or fax the item to someone. You can:

 

What do you need to do?

Some conditions and limitations apply:

  1. Limit the amount copied - you may reproduce or communicate 1 article from a journal issue. You may copy 2 or more articles from the same issue if they are on the same topic. There are no limits on the number of copies that you can make e.g. if there are 400 students in the course, you can make 400 copies, plus spares.
  2. It must be for educational purposes - educational purposes are defined as reproducing or communicating material for a particular course of instruction or for the administration of that course. They also cover reproducing material to be included in a library collection. Educational purposes do not cover general or commercial activities of the University, such as marketing and promotion.
  3. You must attribute each journal article with a full citation - for information about correctly citing material see: Citation Styles within the University.
  4. If placing the journal article online you must also:
    • Restrict access to University of Melbourne staff and students - material can be placed on a LMS but not on an open access website.
    • Include a copyright warning notice on each journal article - the notice should appear either before the journal is opened or on the first page of the article. Copies of the notices are available here.
    • Register the journal article with the Copyright Office - any journal articles placed online must be registered with the Copyright Office. You do not need to register journal articles that you have linked to on a website or on Supersearch.
    • Instructions on inserting the copyright notice and registering material are available in the Do-It-Yourself & Online Course Material guide.

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Using Journal Articles from Library Databases

Many journal articles are available electronically from library databases via Supersearch. It is recommended that you link to articles using the OpenURL generator. Instructions on creating links are available in the Do-It-Yourself & Online Course Material guide.

Use of these databases is governed by a licence between the University and the database provider. Many of these licences do not allow articles to be printed off to be included in course packs; used as handouts; or downloaded as pdfs to be made available via the LMS. If you do need to print or download articles contact the Copyright Office for advice.

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Readings Online can help!

Readings Online is a service that can make your reading materials available online via the LMS. Simply provide a reading list to Readings Online and they will do the rest. For more information visit the Readings Online web site.

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Further Information

Content updated 17/01/08

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