Copyright and Creative Commons was the focus of the workshop on 3 September by Mandy Henk from Tohatoha Aotearoa Commons for NEX online teachers.

This session provided a broad overview of copyright law in NZ. For example, the term “original expressions” spans literary works created on keyboard or using words and even computer programmes. Artistic works include diagrams - even house plumbing diagrams count as artistic works.

Under the Copyright fair deal you can use between 3 - 50% of a copyrighted resource in your classroom. For us as online teachers our 'classroom' means behind a login in our Zoom classroom or Google classroom.  Mandy recommended posting material for our students within Google Drive/Google classroom then sharing the link online. Linking to a resource online was better than reproducing a resource.

(Section 49 of the Copyright Act has an exception for things done for the purposes of examination - therefore you could use material for assessment purposes.)

The last part of the session was learning about different Creative Commons licencing and how to use and cite them.

Thanks Mandy from Tohatoha Aotearoa. We are looking forward to the second workshop.  The next session is going to focus on how to find resources that we can share widely with students.