Unreferenced Notes from an Instructor

From: Meghann Matwichuk <mtwchk[_at_]UDel.Edu>
Date: Tue, 10 May 2005 16:00:00 -0400

Hello all,

I am a new subscriber to this listserv and look forward to learning more about copyright issues through the discussions that take place here.

I've received the following request from an instructor:

"I have read a great book and taken notes on each chapter. I have typed them up and am wondering if I could give them to the students. They do NOT include references and quotations because I state at the beginning that they are all the author's words and voice and none of it can be attributed to me in any way, whatsoever. It is a summary of each chapter. Let me know if you think I should NOT let the students have a copy of the summary. I don't want to get into trouble and more important, I don't want to encourage plagiarism in any form. If by giving them a copy of my notes from the book, they begin to think they don't have to use footnotes or that it is ok to use someone else's voice, I would feel tremendous regret."

My instinct is that she is within fair use in distributing these notes to her students. I plan on referring her the following checklist:

http://copyright.iupui.edu/checklist.htm

Any thoughts / opinions on the matter? I suppose I'm just looking for some reinforcement before I respond to her -- or to hear if I'm missing something obvious! Thanks in advance.

Best,

---

Meghann R. Matwichuk
Instructional Media Department
Morris Library
University of Delaware
181 S. College Ave.
Newark, DE 19717
(302) 831-1475 Received on Wed May 11 2005 - 00:00:00 GMT