Educational materials and copyright

You are not allowed to just include any type of information in your educational materials. View the conditions under which different types of information may be used. 

Using texts

The Dutch universities have made a collective agreement with the Publishers’ Association for Educational Licences (UvO) about the use of texts. Texts may be used under the following conditions:

  • You may copy a maximum of 40 pages but no more than 20% of the entire work.
  • Sources must be properly acknowledged.
  • You may not take parts of a publication and spread them out by including them in several different readers for the same course.
  • The regulations apply to both printed and digital educational materials.
  • The regulations also apply to images. There is no limit to the number of images you may use in a PowerPoint presentation, for example. However, there are two conditions that must be met, namely that you may use a maximum of 25 images from one work (e.g., a book) and no more than a few works from one and the same creator.

Read the complete set of regulations on the Publishers' Association for Educational Licences (UvO) website.

Using images and sound

You may always link to images, videos and sound fragments. Licensed images and audio works or audiovisual works that permit reuse may also be downloaded and displayed without a problem. The copyright page for researchers contains sources of royalty-free images. The range of options for using images, videos and sound fragments is quite broad and depends on the Creative Commons licence.

The right to quote images

The right to quote permits the use of images or audio works or audiovisual works under the following conditions:

  • The image that you use supports the educational content.
  • The image/video from which the quotation has been taken has been lawfully published.
  • You must cite the source.
  • You may not alter the image.

Using entire audio works or audiovisual works during lectures

An entire audio work or audiovisual work may be played or presented free of charge without permission under the following conditions:

  • Playing the audio work or audiovisual work serves an educational purpose during a lesson or work group and the audio work or audiovisual work forms part of the study programme.
  • The audio work or audiovisual work is played on the educational institution’s premises or played during a digital lecture.
  • Playing the audio work or audiovisual work serves no commercial purpose.

Posting audio works or audiovisual works on Brightspace

Parts of audio works or audiovisual works may be posted on Brightspace under the following conditions:

  • The audio work or audiovisual work serves to supplement the study programme.
  • The audio work or audiovisual work is posted in a private environment to which only students have access.
  • Fair remuneration is paid to the copyright holders. Each faculty has different regulations for this. The contact within your faculty can check to see which agreements have been made with VidemaBuma/Stemra of Pictoright.

Adding links in Brightspace

You may always link to a website as long as you link to material that has been lawfully published. When you cut and paste information from a website, it means that you are reusing and reproducing the information. In such a situation, you must take the copyright into account and make sure that you always cite the source.

The University Library collection includes materials that Radboud University has purchased or subscribed to and for which a licence has been obtained from the publisher. Follow the instructions in the manual to create a link to material from the University Library.