ePortfolios for students

Students, under the fair dealing provision, may use copyright works as part of their research and study assessments including in ePortfolios. In cases where the ePortfolio contains copyright material and is being used for assessment, the permissions should be limited to those people needing to assess the ePortfolio. If a student's work is entirely original they may choose to share, or publish, the work to a wider audience.

The fair dealing provisions available to students only apply to students whilst they are studying the course. Once they have left the course the fair dealing provisions no longer apply and the copyright works incorporated into their ePortfolio must be removed.

Before adding any assets to an ePortfolio students should familiarise themselves with the SCU copyright guide for students and the information on.

Students requiring images for use in their ePortfolios should take advantage of materials made available via Creative Commons licences.

When placing assets in the ePortfolio students should consider the following;

Why are you including the copyrighted work?

The inclusion of copyrighted material for the purpose of study and research, reporting the news, criticism and review, and parody or satire, for example, may be considered fair dealing. The inclusion of copyrighted works that directly apply to or illustrate your educational activities may also be considered fair dealing. Copyrighted works that provide aesthetic appeal or "entertainment value" in your ePortfolio may not be considered fair dealing.

How much of someone else's work are you including?

One of the five factors used in the determination of fair dealing is "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole." It is less fair to copy a large or important part of a work. Using only that which illustrates the point would be more likely to be considered fair dealing.

Have you included proper citations to the work of others?

Can you make do with a link to the item, rather than uploading a copy, and bypass the question altogether? You should, of course, properly attribute your sources to avoid the appearance of plagiarism and to acknowledge the author of the work (moral rights). Be aware, though, that plagiarism and copyright infringement are not the same thing.

Adapted with permission from James Cook University's ePortfolios & Copyright guide.