Course Clearances For Instructors

Please place all of your readings and resources only in the appropriate ‘Readings’ section in Moodle as provided by the instructional design staff (rather than in separate folders).

Please be sure to choose and upload your reading list(s) six weeks prior to the date that the course will become available to students.

Once you have selected your course readings and resources and inserted them into the ‘readings’ page on the Moodle platform for your course, please let your program office and the Copyright Office know.

The Copyright Office staff will then:

• Confirm, correct, or add links to readings found within the RRU Library's electronic resources.
• Confirm that the works not available via RRU electronic resources selected are covered by fair dealing.
• Contact you when a work cannot be used without further permission from a copyright holder. In this case, fees will be incurred, so we want to give you and your program the opportunity to choose resources that fit wihtin your budget, or to use another resources that does fall within the fair dealing guidelines.
• Make clean copies of readings and post the PDFs on your moodle course page as required, or
• In the situation that a print coursepack is required, make clean copies of readings, compile a 'master set', and provide this to the program office to send to the printer.

As you are considering course readings and resources, please also note the following:

• whenever possible, use existing RRU resources; please refer to  the Library's databases for available materials
• for business cases, consider exploring options available through existing RRU databases such as Sage Business Cases 
• when using existing RRU resources is not an option, consider permission free alternatives (e.g. Open Access Resources); please refer to our guide on permission free alternatives
• consider linking to external online resources; typically, linking to existing online resources is not a copyright violation in that nothing is being copied; however, it is important not to link to obviously infringing materials.

Limitations on linking to open web resources are as follows:

1. Google Books: 
   • It is okay to use Google Books for additional readings, but important to specify that the material is only "partially available" 
2. Wayback Machine/Internet Archive:
   • The copyright team assesses the use of the Wayback machine/Internet Archive on a case by case basis. 
3. Resources that require the creation of accounts:
   • Sometimes access to certain online resources require the creation of free accounts. If there is no access limit then it is okay to use both for required and recommended readings, but instructors should check to see whether students have consented to the use of the cloud-based learning tools. Here is how (see “How it works – for instructors”): https://confluence.royalroads.ca:8443/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=5539146 
4. Subscription required:
   • Sometimes, to access a resource, a user is asked to subscribe and pay a fee upfront. In this case, we cannot provide a link to this resource regardless whether it is required or additional reading.  If it is required, get permission to reproduce or find alternate resources; if it is recommended, remove the link and keep the citation.
5. Research Gate and Academia.edu:
   • The copyright team assesses the use of Research Gate and Academia.edu on a case by case basis. 

On occasion, previous students' works are used as examples for current students to reference. As copyright belongs to the students, permission must be obtained from each student for use of their materials.