Using LMS for Course Reserves
I came across an article today about book publishers going after colleges that allow professors to post resources online. One of the first schools they targeted was Cornell University. As a result of this Cornell has written guidelines which the publishers are now happy with, and which they are hoping other schools will also adopt.
The Cornell guidelines are available online (pdf):
Copyright_Guidelines.pdf
Essentially they state that the same rules apply to putting together a coursepack and to putting resources online. Professors are expected to either obtain copyright permission or establish that fair use applies when posting resources online.
None of this is surprising. The interesting part of the policy is that they state that whenever possible online resources should be behind a password protected area and should go away when the course is over. They specifically say that Cornell "provides support for implementing these features in Blackboard."
In my mind, this puts to rest the question of whether or not an LMS can be used for electronic course reserves. Cornell's answer, which is supported by The American Association of Publishers, is that an LMS can be used provided that permission has been obtained or fair use applies. I'm good with that.