2.2 Legal considerations

Whether you find resources for teaching and learning on a favourite website, from a colleague or a social network, there are a number of things you need to take into account before using them. As well as ensuring the resource is of a high quality and the source reliable, you also need to consider some legal issues surrounding their reuse. You are not necessarily free to use and/or modify a resource simply because it is freely accessible on the internet. Issues of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and copyright must be taken into account.

Often resources protected by copyright can only be used in whole or in part with the permission of the owner. The rules on copyright become more complex in an online context because it is so easy to access, copy and transfer electronic information. Anything you find on the web, whether text, an image, video clip or piece of audio, ‘belongs’ to someone else, and you should check the copyright statement, if there is one, to ascertain what you can legally do with the material.

Using material you find on the web has been made easier in recent years through Creative Commons which provides a simple system of licensing to enable people to share and re-use information easily. This is a straightforward system that enables you to license your work up front and so works particularly well if you are sharing material via your own website or blog. Alternatively, there are some repository websites such as TES Connect or iTunes U that host resources created by individuals and organisations under pre-agreed copyright licenses, enabling educators to download, reuse and adapt them to suit their own needs.