Teaching a class, need info about article reprints

[TravelingChris]

Hi everybody,

 

I will be teaching a class on criminology for high schoolers next year. The textbooks are very expensive and I am thinking about using articles instead of a textbook. I am not trying to evade copyright law but want to know if there is a service for educators where you pay a certain amount of money and then get to access articles for classes. I am thinking about using journal articles in the field of criminology. Is there such a service? Has anyone heard of such a thing?

[regentrude]

I am sorry and can't answer your question, but wanted to comment on the "textbooks are expensive" part.

If you use older editions, college textbooks are very very inexpensive. you can get Saferstein's Criminalistics for under $4 on abebooks.

[TravelingChris]

I am thinking of using an older edition of something. I don't know how many students I will have so that is a potential problem. Oh, and Regentrude, criminalistics is different from criminology. Criminalistics deals with physical evidence in crimes. Criminology is the study of crime, criminals, and victims. It uses statistics and research studies, not lab studies like criminalistics.

[regentrude]

I am thinking of using an older edition of something. I don't know how many students I will have so that is a potential problem. Oh, and Regentrude, criminalistics is different from criminology. Criminalistics deals with physical evidence in crimes. Criminology is the study of crime, criminals, and victims. It uses statistics and research studies, not lab studies like criminalistics.

 

 

ok, my bad. Thanks for setting me straight.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Hi everybody,

 

I will be teaching a class on criminology for high schoolers next year. The textbooks are very expensive and I am thinking about using articles instead of a textbook. I am not trying to evade copyright law but want to know if there is a service for educators where you pay a certain amount of money and then get to access articles for classes. I am thinking about using journal articles in the field of criminology. Is there such a service? Has anyone heard of such a thing?

 

If you have references to all of the articles could you send them links and then have them print at home or read online?

I remember getting article packs in college for German back before the Internet. But I'm not sure how reprint fees were paid or if it fell under fair use.

[JanetC]

MyJstor will give you a free account with access to up to 3 items every two weeks. My university library will give access to guest researchers, but only on site, not remotely.

 

Your library may subscribe to journal database (mine gets ProQuest and AcademicOneFile but not JSTOR)

 

Check on Google Scholar -- sometimes you can find free PDFs that way.

 

Check the professor's website. Many authors will leave an early version of a paper on their website for educational use if the main paper is behind a paywall.

 

If all else fails, email the author and see if they will provide you with a PDF.

 

Good luck!

[JennyD]

I teach at a university and use a lot of articles and book excerpts in my classes. Unfortunately, I have never heard of something like you are describing. Furthermore, even with access to all the articles I need through my university library system, putting together a coursepack has become wildly expensive. As in, the coursepack for my current course would cost over $220, and that doesn't even include the four required books that the students must also buy. So, like everyone else, I am now putting weekly readings up on Blackboard and urging the students to print them out. There is a good deal of debate among my legal colleagues as to whether this violates copyright law or not -- some specialists in intellectual property maintain that it is okay if it is for educational use, while others disagree -- but it has really become the only feasible option.

 

Sending the students links to articles is an excellent idea. I do this as well, when articles are available online.

[Julie in MN]

Just a bit of trivia: One of the very early Kinko's was at the University of Minnesota back when I was in college (showing my age, but this was in the 70's). Their main business seemed to be copying packs of articles for professors. They had all kinds of sets there, you just had to give your professor and course number. In a few cases, that was the entire course readings, considered more up-to-date than textbooks. I can't remember exactly but it was pennies a page, though the quality was often terrible.

 

I always wondered about the copyright regs, but it was probably harder to follow up on those things before the internet? Or maybe easier, now that I think of it, with just less of everything?

[Candid]

I also think the copy right issues are difficult for you to negotiate, but there might be some other ways to go. The subscription way along with a list of articles for them to read could work.

 

As an example http://www.ncfca.org/ has a lexix/nexis subscription for $25 for students. Jstor is often carried by the local public library and can be accessed through their website.

 

I think Regentrude's idea of using an older edition of the same text as merit. These are widely available thanks to Amazon. Run a title you would like to use into Amazon's search bar and you find much cheaper older editions available in large quantity.

[msk]

This website on copyright and fair use in educational settings might be helpful: http://www.umuc.edu/...w/copyright.cfm

 

As you are only teaching the course once, an electronic copy of an article in a place only your students can access might work for articles you can't link directly to, and the older textbook editions would help too if they're available.

 

The printed coursepacks or course readers a lot of courses used to use were legal (at least where I've worked). If I recall correctly, journal articles were free (except for the cost of printing), as were book excerpts if they were less than 10% of the original book. If more of a book was included, the book publishers generally charged a fee which drove up the price of the course readers a lot (all this was managed by the copy place that printed the readers). I can't remember whether the free use of journal articles persisted after the first time a course was taught, however. You could probably get a copy place to price out a course reader for you-- they still exist, and a larger copy company (or one near a college) would know all the rules and how to do it legally.