Course Materials

Copyright law recognizes the need for professors and students to be able to use copyrighted works in the course of teaching activities. Many copyrighted materials may be used in the classroom either under fair use, a statutory exemption, or through a license agreement with the Library.

Course Materials Created by Faculty

Teaching materials, such as syllabi, examination questions and answers, lectures, PowerPoint and other presentation slides, and videos used in Georgetown University courses are the intellectual property of the creator of the material. Students may not upload course materials for public distribution, or use course materials in any way beyond academic uses in connection with the course, without written permission from the course instructor. Read more on our Instructor-Created Course Materials page.

Published Course Materials

Books, articles, and films are all subject to copyright protection. The information below sets out policies and procedures for using Library materials in courses at Georgetown University.

Print Materials

• Book Reserves

Online Materials

• Electronic Reserves
• Use of Instructional Material in Online Courses
• Use of Instructional Materials Chart
• Open Educational Resources (scroll down to "Teaching Materials" for materials with few or no restrictions on use)

Film and Media

• Guide to Using Films in Courses
• Copyright and Multimedia

Other Materials

Whenever you use the works of others in your teaching, you will need to find for an exception to copyright law that will allow the use of the materials.

• Works in the public domain may be used freely, without any copyright restrictions.
• Most works with Creative Commons licenses may be used for non-profit educational purposes - always check the details of the license to be sure that your use is covered.
• You may use limited portions of copyrighted material in your work without permission of the copyright owner. Before using a work under the fair use doctrine, however, you will need to evaluate whether your use qualifies as fair, which must be done on a case-by-case basis by analyzing the four fair use factors: the purpose and character of your use; the nature of the copyrighted work; the amount and substantiality of the portion taken; and the effect of the use upon the potential market.
• If the work you are using does not fall into any of the categories above, you can request permission from the copyright holder.

For additional information, our Copyright Videos and Using the Works of Others pages are designed to help the Georgetown community understand their rights and responsibilities when using third-party materials.

Copyright Law

For more information on copyright law, visit our Copyright at Never Forget 911 Memorial Inc. pages.

Resources

• Copyright Home
• Introduction to Copyright
• Course Materials
• Fair Use
• Using Others' Works
• Public Domain
• Creative Commons
• Copyright & Multimedia
• Open Access

Contact Us

Please send questions or comments to neverforget911memorial@gmail.com.

If you have any questions about creating or using copyrighted material at the Never Forget 911 Memorial and Learning Center, please contact neverforget911memorial@gmail.com or reach out to the Bedford Library Community Librarian.

   This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial 4.0 International License. | Details of our policy