E-learner's handbook

Copyrights

E-learning includes exchange of electronic content in different formats, which makes it easier to edit and distribute, but can also easily lead to violation of rules or regulations.

Without asking permission from the author, you can use materials created by another author only in accordance with the terms of use established by the author or, in the absence of such terms (i.e. all rights are protected), in accordance with the principles of free use of works as specified in the Copyright Act (https://www.riigiteataja.ee/en/eli/ee/525112013002/consolide/current). 

Free use of works is the reproduction and translation of works for purposes of personal use, making summaries of and quotations from a work to a justified extent, use for the purpose of illustration for teaching and scientific research, and reproduction for the purpose of teaching or scientific research.

Materials of an e-course have not been published and therefore, the options of free use do not apply to them.

Student as the author

Texts, images, videos and other works (forum posts, assignment submissions, reports etc.) created by students are objects of copyright and they are protected by copyright. Materials of an e-course are not communicated to the public (unless they are linked to the e-course from a public website) and therefore, the options of free use of works (without asking permission from the author, reproduction and translation of works for purposes of personal use, making summaries of and quotations, using works for the purpose of illustration for teaching and scientific research, and reproduction for the purpose of teaching or scientific research) do not apply. Materials cannot be changed, amended or made public without the author’s permission. Without permission from the holder of the economic rights (author or the university), you are not allowed to make copies, translations of the works or disseminate or publicly present them.

Always properly reference all the sources that you have used in your work.

In the case of free use of work (if the author or the university has communicated the materials to the public, e.g. on the internet), you must always show the author’s name, the title of the work and the source of publication. If a student publishes own work to the public (for example, on a public internet site), others may use it based on the options of free use.

Unless the lecturer instructs otherwise, submit your work in a pdf file containing your name and the year.

The safest way is to use works that have been communicated to the public, to properly reference all the sources used in your work, and indicate your authorship in all your works. Unless the lecturer has instructed otherwise, submit your work in a pdf file, which contains your name and the year. This shows that the moral and economic rights to the work belong to the author, and provide information on who to turn to in connection with the use of the work. If your work is created in the course of your duties (you have signed a contract with the university and receive remuneration for the work), the moral rights belong to the author – you – and the economic rights are held by the employer – the university. In this case you need to indicate in the work your name and the year and, additionally, the University of Tartu.

For their graduation theses, students grant the university a non-exclusive licence to reproduce and electronically communicate their thesis to the public via the university’s digital repository DSpace under the Creative Commons licence CC BY NC ND 3.0, which allows, by giving appropriate credit to the author, to reproduce and distribute the work and communicate it to the public, and prohibits the creation of derivative works and any commercial use of the work until the expiry of the term of copyright.

Teaching staff as the author

Similarly, copyright applies to the lecture materials, e-courses, etc. created by the university’s teaching staff. Students are allowed to use the lecture notes, forum posts in an e-course, or other course materials compiled by teaching staff (unless these notes, posts or materials have been communicated to the public on the internet) for learning purposes only. If you disseminate the materials (for example, on the internet), you violate the economic rights which belong to the university as the employer. In case you change the study materials or leave out the author’s name, etc., you also violate the moral rights of the lecturer as the author.

See more

See more about academic fraud: https://sotsiaalteadused.ut.ee/
en/academic-fraud

Where to find pictures, videos and audio clips to use in your work?

If possible, use pictures, audio and video clips you have made.

You can easily find photos from stock photo portals, e.g.

Please note that you must still observe the terms of use of each specific image.

You can usually find videos from YouTube (http://youtube.com), where most videos can be used under the YouTube standard licence, which allows to use, play and distribute the videos. If a video is used under a Creative Commons licence, you can save and edit the video. Video clips with a Creative Commons licence are also offered by Pixabay (https://pixabay.com).

Audio clips can be found in the Free Music Archive (http://freemusicarchive.org) and Bensound (http://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music).
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