Educator's Guide to Intellectual Property,
Copyright and Plagiarism
This white paper was created by four graduate students in the Curriculum, Technology, and Education Reform (CTER) Masters of Education program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
In conducting research and reflecting upon our own experiences, we encountered several problems with the current copyright laws and challenges for the educational community. Copyright laws are too vague and complex, are not a significant part of teacher preparation courses, and are not enforced in school systems. New technologies for reproducing and storing information have compounded the difficulty of enforcing existing laws, and teachers are mirroring society's disregard for ethical compensation of other's work. We believe that copyright law should be made clearer to promote understanding and widespread compliance by educators. We feel that the definition of "fair use" should be expanded to allow legitimate educational uses of copyrighted materials while still offering protection for and honoring the work of writers, artists, and composers. Finally, we recommend that universities and school systems strive to change the culture in the educational community as it relates to copyright law, following the example of librarians, whose profession has embraced ongoing self-education of existing and new copyright laws, and self-policing of copyright abuses.