A note on shared folders of academic resources
- Stuart J
Moore College wants you to assist each other in your studies – it’s part of our value of “Learning in community.”
This varies from discussing topics and assisting students in lower years, to sharing resource lists. And that is good.
However, we also want you to do that ethically, lawfully, and with academic integrity. So here are a few guidelines to help you in what you can share, and how you can assist one another legally and ethically:
Sometimes students share e-copies of resources. Shared electronic folders of copyrighted documents are illegal.
Downloading articles or chapters of books that are under copyright and then sharing them could get you or the College into legal trouble. But since we’ve told you, College is likely indemnified.
This applies to all copyrighted material, including readings on the College LSS and recommended readings not on the LSS. The Library works very hard to keep accurate records of what we use, and to comply fully with Australian Copyright law.
This applies to notes from your lecturers. Their notes are provided for your private use and are the intellectual property of the lecturer or the College. You may not copy or redistribute them without the lecturer’s explicit permission.
This does not apply to resources that are out of copyright and in the public domain. However, you might find old documents that are in a copyrighted book or a database such as Early English Books Online (EEBO). In such cases, copies of even 500-year-old documents from that source are probably under copyright.
While you cannot distribute e-copies or photocopies of copyrighted resources, you are welcome to share links or perma-links to database resources. (Since the major databases produce unstable URLs for their resources (for security), they allow the option of stable perma-links. Those are great to share with each other. Ask a librarian to show you how to copy perma-links from databases.)
Yes, it is a fine line that says you can share a perma-link, but not the e-copy of the resource it links to. But if you follow these laws, you will:
Maintain your integrity and a clear conscience before the Lord.
Maintain the College’s reputation and prevent its legal liability.
Allow College to report accurately on downloads and royalties due.
Another resource that shows up from time to time in shared student folders is video recordings of classroom lectures. College discourages the recording of lectures. We allowed it for the two difficult lockdown years, and if you feel you need an audio or video recording, please discuss this beforehand with your lecturer. It is common courtesy to check before recording, sharing, or uploading any lecture. So if you have audio or video files of old lectures, please delete them from your collections.
Students from time to time upload old student essays, especially essays that earned a high grade. One problem is that some essay questions may show up again years after they first appeared, tempting a brother or sister and making academic integrity very challenging. Students do this with good intentions, but please don’t upload them to shared files. Please delete any old essays from shared drives.[1]
The same applies to outline answers for exams and essay questions.
So what can we share?
Links to resources or names of resources – perma-links are your best bet for external databases such as ATLA; URLs for a book’s catalogue entry are best for Library books.
Banks of old exam and essay questions – these accrue over the years and can cover a syllabus for revision quite well.
Private notes and outlines of topics.[2]
Study papers.[3]
Anki or Memrise decks you have created, links to those others have created or shared publicly, other decks with the author’s permission.
Caveats and encouragements:
Be sure to check the quality and reliability of any resources you use – whether published academic sources, or student-published notes and study papers. You are responsible for the quality of the resources you use.
See these posts on selecting reliable and relevant academic resources.
For types of resources and cases not covered here, please check with the Library staff. Explain to them how and what you want to share and ask if you can. They may say yes!
From 2023 the MTC undergraduate curriculum is being re-written. Much of what was core content in the past may no longer apply.
Love one another and share one another’s burdens. But do it so as to please the Lord, with integrity and righteousness.
Other ways to learn in community and love one another include:
Starting a study group that encourages – great for reading, for essays, for exam revision
Visiting a student in a year above you and asking for help
Helping a struggling student in a year following yours.
Asking for a Student Volunteer Tutor – mainly for languages, but also for academic issues
Visiting the Academic Support Coordinator
Further information:
Read the Library’s excellent “Copyright: A basic guide.” It is a sure guide to much of what you can and cannot do regarding published resources.
Note section 6.2.14 of the Student handbook:
6.2.14 Copyright
Most items in the Library, including all lecture notes and digital material, are subject to copyright. Students are expected to abide by the current copyright legislation when using the Library’s equipment. Information on the copyright provisions is available at http://copyright.org.au
Gordon Cain
21 January 2025
[1] Note though, that you can share an old essay of yours with individual students. However, College recommends you share physical copies for them to read and return.
[2] However, always acknowledge your sources in any shared study notes. Otherwise, a fellow student may use them in good faith and be charged with plagiarism if you have given them material they assumed was original to you.
[3] See Exam Revision 2: The Little Three and study notes for strategies that work better than study papers.