Copyright is essentially a set of exclusive rights granted to the creator of various creative works, encompassing text, art, music, computer programs, sound recordings, and films. These rights empower the copyright owner with the exclusive authority to reproduce the material, and in certain cases, to perform or display the work publicly.
The copyright holder has the ability to prevent unauthorized reproduction or communication of their work, and they may choose to transfer these rights to another party through sale.It’s important to note that copyright doesn’t safeguard ideas, concepts, styles, or techniques. While it won’t protect the idea behind a film or book, it does protect tangible forms of expression like a script or a storyboard for a film.
In Australia, copyright protection is automatic; there is no requirement for formal registration, publication, or the inclusion of a copyright symbol (‘©’), although using such a symbol is considered best practice. Protection begins as soon as the work is materialised, whether in written form or recorded, such as in a film. Please click the hyperlink for more information: Copyright for Australian Schools and TAFEs.
Helpful Links to Websites:
Applying a Creative Commons Licence
New information sheet with updated instructions.
Locate user-friendly information sheets about copyright, including advice to people working in educational institutions.
Copyright Agency Limited (CAL)
Information about copyright licences and permissions.
Information and tools needed to manage your rights on the YouTube platform.
What is plagiarism?
“Academic Plagiarism” refers to a number of bad behaviours which are not tolerated at MIHE. To plagiarise someone’s work means:
- Submitting another person’s work as if it were your own.
- Replicating words or ideas from someone else without proper attribution.
- Neglecting to enclose a quotation within quotation marks.
- Providing inaccurate details about the origin of a quotation.
- Altering words while retaining the sentence structure of a source without acknowledgment.
- Reproducing a substantial portion of content from a source, regardless of whether credit is given, violating “fair use” rules.
The practice of citing sources serves as an effective means to steer clear of most instances of plagiarism.
Why is Academic Integrity Important at the Melbourne Institute of Higher Education?
Within the academic community, plagiarism is regarded as a form of theft, and its consequences are determined by the severity of intent. Possible repercussions may include failure in the paper and/or subject, and in extreme cases, expulsion from MIHE.
How do you avoid plagiarism?
Planning and Researching Your Paper:
- Plan your paper.
- Take clear, well-organized notes.
- Keep a record of your sources.
- Learn how to evaluate your sources.
Creative Commons (CC) represents a voluntary licensing framework employed by copyright owners to dictate the terms under which their creative works can be shared, reused, and remixed by others. This licensing approach facilitates legal and free dissemination of various types of content, including text, images, and videos, while clearly defining the permissible actions and restrictions associated with the material.
Within the Creative Commons system, there exist six standardized licenses, each tailored to accommodate different usage scenarios.
These licenses provide a spectrum of permissions, ranging from more restrictive to more permissive, allowing the original creator to make a nuanced decision regarding the extent to which they want others to utilize and modify their work. The deliberate selection of a specific Creative Commons license by the content creator serves as a crucial mechanism for establishing the framework within which others can engage with and leverage their creative contributions. This nuanced approach not only empowers content creators to retain control over their intellectual property but also fosters a collaborative and open environment where the boundaries of sharing and creativity are clearly delineated and respected.
Open Educational Resources (OER) represent a valuable array of teaching and learning materials characterised by licensing arrangements that empower individuals and institutions to freely access, use, adapt, and modify the content for personal or educational purposes, all without incurring any financial charges.
These encompass a diverse spectrum of educational tools, spanning full courses, textbooks, streaming videos, exams, software, and various other materials and methodologies designed to support the learning process. By virtue of their open licensing model, OERs foster a collaborative educational ecosystem, allowing educators and learners alike to leverage these resources without the constraints of traditional copyright limitations.
- Atlas of Living Australia
- The ALA is a collaborative, digital, open infrastructure that consolidates Australian biodiversity data from multiple sources. It provides free, online access to millions of occurrence records.
- Australian Bureau of Statistics
- The ABS is Australia’s national statistical agency, offering trusted official statistics on a wide range of economic, social, population, and environmental matters.
- Directory of Open Access Journals
- Indexes more than 10,000 open access journals covering various areas such as science, technology, medicine, social science, and humanities. It serves as a white list of open access journals, aiming to be the starting point for information searches for quality, peer-reviewed, open access material.
- Digital Commons Network
- Provides full-text scholarly articles from hundreds of universities and colleges worldwide. The network includes a growing collection of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, working papers, conference proceedings, and other original scholarly work.
- Encyclopedia of Life
- Gathers, generates, and shares knowledge in an open, freely accessible, and trusted digital resource. It includes sources of biodiversity knowledge that are legally and practically shareable.
- Europeana
- Works with thousands of European archives, libraries, and museums to share cultural heritage for enjoyment, education, and research. Europeana Collections provide access to over 50 million digitized items, including books, music, artworks, and more.
- Hindawi
- One of the world’s largest publishers of peer-reviewed, fully open-access journals. Hindawi focuses on serving authors while preserving robust publishing standards and editorial integrity.
- Khan Academy
- A large library of videos covering various subjects, including math, biology, chemistry, physics, humanities, finance, and history. Khan Academy videos are short 10-minute tutorials with an instructor providing explanations and working things out on a board.
- National Pollutant Inventory
- Provides the community, industry, and government with free information about substance emissions in Australia.
- Open Case Studies
- An interdisciplinary, open educational resource with case studies that can be used by anyone. Many of these case studies focus on sustainability, but there are also cases on other topics benefiting from an interdisciplinary approach.
- PHET Sims
- PhET provides fun, free, interactive, research-based science and mathematics simulations. These simulations are extensively tested and evaluated for educational effectiveness and can be run online or downloaded.
- PLOS (Public Library of Science)
- PLOS is a nonprofit, open-access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication.
- Scootle
- A national repository that provides Australian schools with more than 20,000 digital resources aligned to the Australian Curriculum.
- The Orange Grove
- Collections open to the public, including Open Courseware, Open Textbooks, 3D object models, learning modules, lesson plans, and videos, encompassing higher education content.
- WikiVet
- WikiVet is a worldwide collaborative project to develop a comprehensive online, peer-reviewed veterinary knowledge database. The aim is to cover the entire undergraduate curriculum.