U Texas System Expands Copyright Clearance License

The University of Texas (UT) System has expanded its adoption of Copyright Clearance Center's annual copyright license from its Austin campus, which it announced in September 2008, to the entire UT System. The nine academic campuses and six health institutions that the UT System comprises make it one of the largest higher education systems in the United States.

The annual copyright license makes it easy for faculty and staff to license published materials for use in coursepacks, e-reserves, course management systems, and research collaboration. For a single annual fee, the license provides librarians, faculty, copy shop staff, and others with pre-approved permission to use and share content from millions of books, scholarly journals, newspapers, magazine, and e-books.

"An annual comprehensive license from the Copyright Clearance Center will allow all 15 campuses of the UT System to improve operational efficiency in this area and will position the UT System at the forefront of copyright use and compliance management," said Barry Burgdorf, vice chancellor and general counsel of the UT System. "We are pleased to deliver the campuses of one of the largest public university systems in the nation into this cost efficient arrangement, which will benefit our faculty, students and staff by providing easy, compliant access to a large and expanding library of academic works,"

"At UT Austin, we strive to make course materials available to students and faculty with minimal difficulties, and CCC's annual copyright license helps us do just that," added Georgia Harper, scholarly communications advisor with the UT at Austin Libraries. "With the annual copyright license, faculty and staff can focus on the business of teaching, while demonstrating the importance of respecting the intellectual and creative property of others."

The list of institutions that have adopted CCC's annual license includes the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, Middlebury College in Vermont, and Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee, WI.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business. Send your higher education technology news to her at dian@dischaffhauser.com.

Comments

Wed, Jul 1, 2009 Austin, Texas

This is an important feature for teaching students to evaluate the contents of our libraries, including peer reviwed papers in technical journals, books of any kind, theses and dissertations, compositions, or marketing publications. A key fact that we need widely available is how to apply this Copyright feature when using such materials for educational purposes. Often commercial publishers (trade journals, newspapers, etc.) do not know about this option. Similarly, the reduced requirements for "permission" may invite infringement challenges. I depend on advice from our librarians.

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