Innovative Copyright – Unique Resources for Copyright Education
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Learning about or teaching copyright is often frustrating and difficult for both teacher and student because it is a complex area, and, let’s face it, reading the text of the law is not always the most exciting way to learn. Endeavoring to address this issue and many others, the Copyright Education and Consultation Program, a project funded by the Illinois State Library, was designed to establish a program to provide authoritative copyright information directly to faculty, instructors, and researchers at the largest Illinois universities. The goals of the program include increasing confidence in use of materials, informing users of copyright education resources available to them, empowering users with knowledge about their own intellectual property rights, and facilitating use of copyrighted material in the classroom. While completing this project, many unique and creative copyright resources were discovered that go beyond the traditional, dry text of the law. The resources presented in this article show that copyright education can be engaging and enjoyable. They include videos, interactive tools, comics, podcasts, tutorials, online courses, Twitter feeds, and blogs about copyright. This has been added to the tools section of Research Resources Subject Tracer™ Information Blog.