It wasn’t until I read the material in Module 4 after the first assessment task that I was aware of what the “copyright issues” could be concerning the use of online resources. I was operating under two of the misconceptions on the Smartcopying website:

1.2.c. Once a work is published or in the public domain, anyone can use it

1.2.d. I am not infringing copyright if I am not making any money from my use of the material (National Copyright Unit, 2016)

To show my growing understanding I decided to look again at my eResources to find more information about what copyright restrictions they have. I also revisited the discussion forum for Assessment 1 to search for conversations other students had about copyright to see how this can help me to build my understanding. Below are my eResources with the copyright information included.

1. Newsela. (2018). Retrieved from https://newsela.com/student-home/explore

©2019 Newsela

1. NASA. (2017). NASA Knows! For Students K-4. Retrieved from https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/index.html

© 2018 NASA

1. European Space Agency [ESA]. (n.d.) ESA Kids [website]. Retrieved from http://www.esa.int/kids/en/home

© 2018 ESA

1. 4. BrainPOP Jr. (n.d.). Solar system [Video file]. In BrainPOP Jr. [Website]. Retrieved from https://jr.brainpop.com/science/space/solarsystem/

© 1999–2019 BrainPOP. All rights reserved

As I have never paid any attention to copyright information on websites before, trying this with the resources from Assessment 1 was an interesting task. I noticed that finding copyright information is not always straightforward. This information was easiest to find on the BrainPOP site, as it was listed at the bottom of the page under “Trademarks and Copyrights” (BrainPOP, n.d.). It was also relatively easy to locate on the ESA website, under the heading “Terms and Conditions” (ESA, n.d.). On the Newsela site, copyright information was under the heading “Terms of Use” (Newsela, n.d.). On the NASA website there was a “Privacy” page but it did not include information about copyright (NASA, 2017). To find copyright information I used the search bar and found a Q&A page, and I followed a link on this page to find “Media Usage Guidelines” (NASA, n.d.). This page explains that, because NASA is a government organization, that content and images on the website “generally are not copyrighted” and that if images or content are used, “NASA should be acknowledged as the source of the material” (NASA, n.d.). This left me a bit confused as I thought that copyright was granted automatically when any work is created, so how could any content not be copyrighted?

I also noticed that the wording of the copyright rules varied amongst the four different websites. Some of these terms which I did not previously understand now make sense to me after reading “Creative Commons: A Quick Overview” (National Copyright Unit, 2016) and viewing “Creative Commons in the Classroom” (Coates, 2013). An advantage I see in Creative Commons Licensing is that it uses standardized symbols and language to briefly and clearly convey the copyrights. If every creator of material online used Creative Commons Licensing, it would simplify the job of any user of online material by allowing her or him to easily understand how the material can be used and attributed.

References

Coates, J. (2013). Creative Commons in the the classroom. [slideshare]. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/Jessicacoates/creative-commons-in-the-classroom-2013

National Copyright Unit. (2016). Smartcopying. Retrieved from http://www.smartcopying.edu.au/