Canvas: Copyright Law and Instructional Materials

University of Tennessee policy (Board Policy BT0024) is that instructors generally retain the copyright to the instructional materials that they produce for use in the classroom. This includes materials such as:

• course syllabi
• in-class handouts
• assignments
• Keynote, PowerPoint, and Prezi presentations, and similar material
• audio and/or video recordings posted to Canvas or other cloud-based repositories
• quizzes and exams (including practice quizzes) and their answer keys
• exam review guides and similar material
• guides to writing essays, lab reports, book reviews, etc.
• evaluation rubrics
• and much, much more

The main exception to this general rule is when the creation of instructional materials is specially commissioned, which might be the case, for example, if the materials were developed using grant or contract funds.

Because instructors retain the copyright to their instructional materials, they can control the distribution or redistribution of these materials. It is a violation of copyright law for a student to upload instructional materials to a third-party aggregator website, such as CourseHero or StudyBlue, without the instructor’s permission.

To deter students from doing this, an instructor can affix a copyright statement to their instructional materials, and can also explain in the course syllabus that it is a violation of both copyright law and University policy for students to share these materials with others by uploading them to these websites.

The University of Tennessee policy that students violate when they do this is University Policy IT0110, “Acceptable Use of Information Technology Resources”. To ensure that students know that they are bound by this policy, you may want to refer to it in your course syllabus. The relevant sections of the policy are quoted here:

2. Users WILL...

k. Respect and honor the rights of other individuals with regard to intellectual property, privacy, freedom from harassment, academic freedom, copyright, and use of University resources