NWE Help: Web: Authoring: Citations: Introduction

NWE Home :: Help :: Web :: Authoring :: Citations

Under the Fair Use exemption of the US Copyright Code, students and teachers working in an educational setting are permitted to use copyrighted works for educational purposes. You are permitted to use copyrighted works in projects hosted on the NWE system as long as you follow the University's interpretation of the Fair Use exemption. The NWE requires that all uses of copyrighted works on the NWE system include a citation.

For NWE students, the most common example of the use of copyrighted works is probably using images found on the web in hypertexts. Including quotes from written material in essays, hypertexts, or reviews is probably the second most common use.

Fair Use also requires that the portion of the work reproduced is relevant to the educational purpose. This means that including mp3 files for every song on Metallica's classic Master of Puppets album with your essay about its importance in the history of speed metal isn't acceptable -- but you could include short clips of particular tracks instead. When in doubt, ask your instructor for her opinion of the use.

The relevance clause of Fair Use also requires that the text or image be educationally relevant. This is especially an issue for images taken from the web and used as general illustrations. If the context of that specific image isn't clear, then it isn't relevant enough for Fair Use.

NOTE: When copying an image for use in web text, be especially careful that you are following proper use guidelines for such images. For instance, some web sites make their money by selling images and have explicit terms stating that their images may not be reproduced on other web sites. See an example of such a site. The use of such images would not likely fall under the umbrella of "fair use."

The next page describes the information you should collect as you conduct research relevant to your project.