The National Copyright Unit (NCU) is leading a course on ‘Copyright for Educators’ in the coming weeks, which may be of interest to Australian school and TAFE teachers and librarians interested in learning about Australian educational copyright, copyright compliance strategies, and Creative Commons (CC) and Open Educational Resources (OER).
What is the NCU?
The Ministers’ Copyright Advisory Group for Schools (CAG), through the NCU, is responsible for copyright policy and administration for the Australian school and TAFE sector (including the management of obligations under educational statutory licences), and represents almost all primary and secondary educational authorities and the Australian TAFE sector (other than in Victoria).
The course leaders are: Sara Lewis, Admin and Project Support Officer; Arabi Shivaramanan, National Copyright Advisor; Holly Cordell, National Copyright Advisor; Alison Davis, National Copyright Manager; Sylvie Saab, National Copyright Manager; and Delia Browne, National Copyright Director.
What is Copyright 4 Educators?
‘Copyright 4 Educators’ is a free online course. The course is specifically targeted to Australian school and TAFE teachers, staff and librarians who want to learn about copyright basics, statutory licensing, music licences, educational exceptions and Creative Commons and open educational resources. The course material is learnt around practical case studies faced by teachers when using copyright material in their day to day teaching and educational instruction.
The Copyright 4 Educators course is not taught; the course leaders facilitate it. The course is student participation focused. Students are divided into small groups in which they organise their online communications/discussions (via email, Google docs, Zoom, Skype, dropbox etc) and jointly submit answers to each week’s task.
The course leaders review each group’s work that has been submitted to that week’s google document and provide feedback. As stated above, the leaders act as facilitators rather than traditional teachers.
The Copyright 4 Educators course has successfully been run twenty-two times previously.
Below is a link to the current course website:
Copyright 4 Educators – we will not running the course in 2024. We will be working on updating the course this year.
To receive an email when the 2025 course opens for registration, please fill in your details via the link below:
Course Breakdown by weeks:
Week 1: Welcome to the course and meet and greet
Students acquaint themselves with the course. We will also divide students into groups and they will then need to meet and greet their fellow group members.
Week 2: Copyright Basics
This week you will learn the types of works that are protected by copyright, when a work is protected by copyright and when it is not, as well as who owns the copyright in the work.
Week 3: Statutory licences
This week, you will learn about statutory licences. The statutory licences allow schools and TAFE institutes to copy (eg scan a chapter of a textbook) and communicate (eg upload the chapter of a textbook to a password protected DTE for students to access) copyright works for educational purposes.
Week 4: Music licences
This week you will learn about the different music licences that apply to schools and TAFE institutes.
Week 5: Copyright exceptions
This week you will learn about exceptions to copyright, focusing on exceptions that apply specifically to educators.
Week 6: Creative Commons and Open Educational Resources (OER)
Week 6 covers Creative Commons and Open Educational Resources (OER). CC and OER are a great alternative to copyright material as it removes copyright questions and allows teachers to do much more with the material.
Week 7 – Law Reform – Fair Use/Fair Dealing
Week 7 builds on everything that’s been covered in the course and requires groups to think about copyright law reform.
What do I need to do to enrol in Copyright 4 Educators?
Please note that you will need a Google account to register and to participate in the course. If you do not have one already, you can create an account by clicking here.
Please pass along this information to anyone whom you think may be interested in learning about copyright and copyright compliance strategies.
Additional questions?
Call or email the National Copyright Unit (02) 7814 3855, smartcopying@det.nsw.edu.au