Blackboard™ Support

1. Fair Use and Blackboard™
   1. To comply with the Fair Use Guidelines for Educational Multimedia when using Blackboard, you should:
      1. Make sure the portions of copyrighted material you are using in your course meet the standards of the Guidelines.
      2. Put the copyrighted material in a section of your Blackboard course site that is secured (using Course Settings: Area Availability in the Control Panel). This should meet the distribution requirement, because only students enrolled in your course will have access to that area.
      3. Use Quicktime Streaming for audio and video, rather than uploading the files for students to download.
      4. Since Blackboard course sites are web-based, it is not possible for the technology to prevent copies of other materials from being made. Therefore, copyrighted material could be made available (using the Availability option on your content) for no more than a 15-day period, and your students should be instructed to not make their own copies of the material.
2. Specific technological requirements of the TEACH Act that are relevant to Blackboard™ :
   1. In summary, if instructors and/or institutions wish to take advantage of the opportunities provided by the TEACH Act for using copyrighted materials, they must reasonably:
      1. limit access to copyrighted works to students currently enrolled in the class;
      2. limit access only for the time needed to complete the class session or course;
      3. inform instructors, students, and staff of copyright laws and policies;
      4. prevent further copying or redistribution of copyrighted works; and
      5. not interfere with copy protection mechanisms
         

last modified on: July 7, 2003