FAQ Copyright, Creative Commons & OER

The Swiss Copyright Act contains a so-called limitation and exception provision for teaching in classroom settings (CopA Art. 19(1)(b)). This also applies to closed Moodle courses.

While you can provide and use parts of copyright protected works, the provision of entire works (e.g. whole books or films) is also prohibited here, as long as they are available for sale.

As soon as you leave the closed classroom setting, for example by offering a university-wide or publicly accessible Moodle course or a MOOC, at conferences and at public lectures, you must adhere to the restrictions that apply to copyrighted works in general (see above).

It is only permitted to open up Moodle courses for self enrollment under the following conditions.

• It is not permitted to use any (copyright) protected third-party materials. Instead, only self-produced materials, materials under Creative Commons licenses or in the public domain, materials for which you have the consent of the authors, and citations may be used.
• Do not include any personal data without consent of the persons in question.
• It is not permitted to include any other protected data (for example: data that falls under the scope of a confidentiality agreement of an external partner).

See information sheet on the use of copyright protected material in online teaching (in German only)

Book chapters and journal articles may be uploaded to closed Moodle courses for a specific class. They are regarded as parts of a complete work, e.g. an entire book or journal.

• Works available for sale (e.g. books, films) can only be made available on Moodle in parts, not as a whole.
  
• Name the full reference to the work within the Moodle course.

See information sheet “Use of copyright protected material in online teaching” (in German only)

The Moodle course must be protected using one of the following enrollment methods:

• Manual enrollment,
• Self-enrollment with password,
• Evento (user synchronization of course participants with Evento).

Guest access of the Moodle course must be disabled.