Copyright for Instructional Materials

Moving your course online, or back to face-to-face? Uploading new materials to Canvas? In general, you have leeway under U.S. Copyright Law to make resources available to support student learning and equitable access. A few tips:

The Libraries are here for you.

Our Course Reserves team can support you in getting course materials (including readings and videos), purchasing and licensing materials where necessary, and reviewing relevant copyright issues. Your Mt. SAC Library Liaisons can also help identify relevant materials available in the Libraries' collections or freely online without risk of copyright infringement. If you need to upload or link to materials for students to access, these are great places to start.

Use what's out there.

The Libraries collections include millions of books, articles, streaming videos, and other materials to support your teaching without copyright concerns. You can also take advantage of videos, images, and other content made available online under Creative Commons licenses, which allow for reuse with attribution. 

Leverage fair use.

Fair use becomes even more critical in an online or hybrid learning context where other exemptions in U.S. Copyright Law are more constrained. Fair use is an explicit part of copyright law that allows all of us to repurpose portions of copyright-protected works in contexts such as education and scholarship. Questions to ask as you upload materials for your students or create online lectures include:

• How does this material support my goals for student learning, and how am I contextualizing or transforming the material through lectures, assignments, etc.?
• Am I using only enough of the material to meet these goals? This may range from a few pages to an entire work in some cases.
• Is there a feasible way for students to access the material on the commercial market? Or is copying and sharing critical to their success in this course? 

Lower risk with simple steps.

There are a few ways to share materials while easily lowering your risk of copyright infringement:

• Link to content: In general, linking to online resources (where you can identify and trust the source) falls within the scope of fair use.
• Limit distribution: When sharing materials, limit circulation to enrolled students. Remind them that the material is protected by copyright and shouldn't be distributed further.
• Mind the time: If you are posting lectures, readings, etc. to Canvas that contain copyrighted material, only make these available as long as necessary to meet the needs of your course. In the future, you may decide that fair use no longer to applies to some material.

Course Reserves

What are Course Reserves?

Course reserves are course materials that an instructor has made available in the library for students to use. They include textbooks, books, DVDs, articles, etc.  

Student Access

Students may borrow course reserves items with their Mt. SAC student ID for two hours at a time, LIBRARY USE only.

Mt. SAC Library is open 7 days a week during Fall & Spring Semester.

Mt. SAC Library Course Reserves Information

• Faculty Resources at the Library: Course Reserves LibGuide

• Course Reserves Form

• Mt. SAC Library Course Reserves FAQs for Students

• Contact: Kolap Samel; ksamel@mtsac.edu 

Databases and other e-Resources

Mt. SAC Library offers a wide array of resources through our subscription services.  These resources can be used as zero-cost alternative to traditional course textbooks.

• Mt. SAC Library Databases