Copyright for Instructional Materials: Permissions & Documentation

If the material you wish to use:

• does NOT fall within the public domain
• does NOT meet a specific exemption
• is NOT available via creative commons or legitimate OA means,

you can request permission for use from the copyright holder. It is important to remember not all authors hold copyright on their works (sometimes it is the agent or publisher). Neither acknowledging the source of content nor lack of response from the copyright holder conveys permission.  

Permission requests should be obtained in writing and kept on file.  At minimum, permission requests need to include:

• Requestor’s name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address
• Requestor’s title, position and institution's name
• The date of request
• The title of the work to be copied with a description and citation of that work
• A description of how the work is to be used, by whom and for how long
• A signature line for the copyright holder to sign, signifying that permission has been granted
• Identification of royalty rates or notation that the grant is “royalty free”

If you are unable to contact the right's holder, permission can be sought through the Copyright Clearance Center.  Once permission has been granted, a copyright statement must be included with the work before it can be posted.  Submit any permission confirmation to distanceed@nnmc.edu in order to embed materials into your course. 

If you need further help crafting a permission statement, contact the NNMC Library at library@nnmc.edu. 

Student works are protected by copyright law and considered original works of authorship. Therefore, students own all the rights to their work. Using any parts of a student’s work is infringement without written permission from the student.

You may use a student’s work as an example in your course if you have taken the following steps:

1. Contact the student to request permission to use the work in your class.
2. If the student does not respond to the request or refuses permission, the work may not be used.
3. If the student grants permission, the student has the option to make stipulations about the work (removing a name or other information). Keep a copy of the correspondence in which the student allowed their work to be used. If the student work will be used in a Blackboard course, submit the permission confirmation to distanceed@nnmc.edu in order to embed materials into your course. 

A citation must accompany student work prior to posting in Blackboard.