Subject/Research Guides: Faculty Resources & Services: Fair Use

How to Determine Fair Use

Wilmington U Checklist for Fair Use
Use this checklist to determine whether your use is "fair" or not.
Fair Use - Columbia University
The Copyright Advisory Office at Columbia University describes fair use and provides a checklist educators may use to evaluate their use of copyrighted materials.
Fair Use Evaluator
Affiliated with the American Library Association, this page provides a tool to determine the "fairness" of a use under the U.S. Copyright Code and a document that helps users collect, organize & archive information needed to support a fair use.
Exceptions for Educators Tool
The Exceptions for Instructors eTool guides users through the educational exceptions in U.S. copyright law, helping to explain and clarify rights and responsibilities for the performance and display of copyrighted content in traditional, distance and blended educational models.
Government Fair Use PDF
For those works that are still protected by copyright, consult this fair use PDF to help you determine if the work can be used in other, more limited ways.

The authors do not get credit when each student accesses the article if one pdf was used, which might impact royalties paid to the authors.
For library licensed material - The library might not know that a resource was heavily used, since only 1 person accessed the article but dozens could read it each semester.
For a graduate-level class, providing a permalink to the article could provide a scaffolded opportunity for the students (and newer faculty) to practice logging in and downloading the article, and would also provide access to the citation information in most cases.
PDFs are not always the best accessible option for students who use a screen reader. If you provide a link to content in a library database, other options such as text audio or HTML format is provided.