Q: I developed an online version of my course. What is the best way to provide copyright protection at the time when students sell notes to commercial notetaking services?

A: Some faculty include a statement to the syllabus forbidding selling/buying class notes, exercises, quizzes, exams without their written permission. There are no tools to monitor the infringement of copyright when students sell notes to commercial notetaking services (FlashNote/Noteutopia/Notehall, Course Hero etc.).
Copyright protection for online course materials is a grey area. Is it legal or ethical?
There are "legal issues and the general controversy around selling class notes. Notehall and competing platform Course Hero even received a cease and desist letter from the UCSC general counsel, and it also alerted faculty members and undergraduates that the commercialization of class notes is illegal in California." 

Q: How do I check students papers for plagiarism?

A: There is Plagiarism Checker Tool: http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/help-authors.php

You can download it for free: http://www.plagiarismchecker.com/

or Turnitin

https://turnitin.com/static/products/index.php

Turnitin is very powerful but it is not free.

Look for the plagiarism checking tools incorporated into the LMS platform you use. For example, you can create Safe Assignments using Blackboard.
SafeAssign checks all submitted papers against the following databases:

• Internet - comprehensive index of documents available for public access on the Internet
  
  
• ProQuest ABI/Inform database with over 1,100 publication titles and about 2.6 million articles from '90s to present time, updated weekly (exclusive access)
  
  
• Institutional document archives containing all papers submitted to SafeAssign by users in their respective institutions
  
  
• Global Reference Database containing papers that were volunteered by students from Blackboard client institutions to help prevent cross-institutional plagiarism.

Blackboard Help Articles

• About Safe Assignments
• Create & Edit Safe Assignments
• Grade & Manage Safe Assignments
• Understanding Originality Reports
• Direct Submit a Paper for Plagiarism Check

Top 10 FREE Plagiarism Detection Tools for Teachers

Google offers a Scholar Plagiarism Search tool to search " not only plagiarized phrases but also correct missing quotation marks and citations. This software scans your research paper, essay, coursework or dissertation completely from its database of internet resources, past exam papers, past essays, old dissertation papers and published journals."

Q: I need my online class students to watch "An inconvenient truth" documentary. It is available via Amazon and Netflix streaming for $3.99. How can we make it available to students without them spending money for a streaming service?

A: The question is related to copyright issues. There are educational licensing options but they generally are too expensive or intended for public screening (http://www.swank.com) .

To check where movies are available, use CanIstreamit (http://www.canistream.it/).

There is FAQ article by Peggy Hoon that contains most answers to questions about using copyrighted works in your teaching: http://www.knowyourcopyrights.org/bm~doc/kycrfaq.pdf

Read answer 4, part 2. My conclusion it is to ask students to pay for a movie rent for the screening assignment because of a conflicting situation with TEACH Act obligations.

Q: Where I can find a free footage to make my presentation in class more engaging? My students are copiyng images from Internet for their projects. How to make sure that they are copyright free?

A: In a situation when students are assigned to use the pictures for power point presentation project I will advise students to search in public domains.

How to use Creative Commons to find free images, audio and video tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvsbJaJeFGY
The instructions are at Creative Commons wiki page: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Public_domain
and here: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions

Not all the links are working but it is a good place to start your search for free footage.
CC free video search: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/index.php?title=Special:Ask&offset=50&limit=500&q=[[format%3A%3AMovingImage]]&p=mainlabel%3DName%2Fformat%3Dbroadtable&po=%3F%3DName%23%0A%3FMainurl%3DWebsite%0A%3FSize%0A

and films: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Video

Example: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Blip.tv
http://blip.tv/

Q: I created video for my class. Where to look for legal music to use in it?

A: Creative commons provides the resources of legal music for videos: http://creativecommons.org/legalmusicforvideos

Q: I am looking for guidance to use copyright protected materials in my course. What documents should I be aware of?

A: The best solution is to implement TEACH Act. Please see the list of resources compiled by ASU Online:

Fair Use Law
http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=distanceed&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=25939
Copyright Clearance Center
http://www.copyright.com/Services/copyrightoncampus/basics/teach.html

ASU
http://www.asu.edu/copyright/
http://www.asu.edu/aad/manuals/acd/acd125.html
http://libguides.asu.edu/content.php?pid=29995&sid=233805
Examples of other Universities addressing copyright materials:
University of Texas
http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/teachact.html#toolkit
North Carolina State University
http://www.provost.ncsu.edu/copyright/toolkit/

TEACH Act Checklist
http://copyright.lib.utexas.edu/teachact.html#toolkit
http://teaching.colostate.edu/guides/copyright/downloads/checklist.pdf
Extensive Checklist
http://www.bsu.edu/libraries/forms/relatedfiles/teachactchecklist.pdf
Letter for Copyright Permission
http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/frequently-asked-questions/toolkit/
TEACH Act Decision Flowchart
http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/files/2007/12/copyright-review-flow-chart-v3x.pdf
Educause Resources
http://www.educause.edu/Resources/Browse/TEACH%20Act/33345

Q: Is collaboration cheating? | Autumn 2011

A: Is collaboration cheating? | Autumn 2011

Q: How to properly credit the information that I use?

A: here is the link to Citation Machine:

http://www.citationmachine.net/index2.php

Citation machine helps students and professional researchers to properly credit the information that they use. Its primary goal is to make it so easy for student researchers to cite their information sources.