Many Media School courses use websites as a teaching tool. The communications team can provide you with a website template that conforms to IU’s required branding conventions and is designed for ease of use in classroom settings.
Class websites that display student work must be hosted on The Media School's website. Please do not present classwork on your personal sites.
Your website will be live online for two years. After two years, the site will be archived. If you'd like us to provide you with a local backup of your files at the end of the semester, please indicate that on your website request form.
Instructors must ensure that content posted to course websites complies with copyright, ethics and file size policies and guidelines.
Instructors must ensure students have legal ownership of or permission to use the content they're posting on Media School websites.
If you have any doubts or concerns, leave the student’s project in draft or private mode until he or she makes corrections or changes. Some instructors post student material only after several editing cycles. If students don’t comply with requests for changes or clarification, they cannot expect to have their work on public view.
Learn more about copyright laws and resources
If a work is in copyright, in order to use it (e.g., copy, record, make a derivative work, distribute, perform or display) legally, your use must be licensed (legal permission from the copyright owner) or fair use.
Fair use is determined by purpose and character of the use, nature of copyrighted work, amount of the work used in proportion to the whole and effect on the potential market of the copyrighted work.
Fair use for educational purposes is generally, but not entirely, limited to face-to-face classroom instruction or, with certain conditions, online distance education. This extends to activities that support this use, such as making copies for students enrolled in a course, uploading materials to Canvas, or clipping, copying and adapting materials in student works created as part of a course assignment, for the sole purpose of performance and evaluation in the class (NOT on the internet).
Uses of a copyrighted work that exceed fair use require a license or permission. For example, a student using a musical recording as the soundtrack for a video completed for a course could likely rely on fair use for the student assignment shown only in class. But the student would need a license to show the work publicly outside the class (including online) or to publicize or promote themselves or their work.
Simply giving credit is not enough. You need written permission from the copyright holder.
The first step in clearing works in copyright is to identify the rights holders and their contact information. Possible sources for this information include:
Most publishers and media companies maintain websites with licensing information. You can request permission either by online form or email. Identify your intended uses precisely. Publishers will often indicate the information they need for permissions.
Upon approval and receipt of a permission or licensing agreement, review its terms to make sure they cover your intended uses. If it is in order, sign it, then return it with the required fee by the due date or upon publication. Include the copyright owner’s required copyright notification on any copies or derivative works.
The easiest way for students to add music to their project is to use Universal Production Music, a robust database of thousands of songs. The school subscribes to this service, which offers an alternative to Creative Commons and other copyright-free options. Learn how to create an account here.
Students also may use some web-based services such as Creative Commons to find art or music for the projects. They must identify the usage requirements, such as link-backs to the original material or other credit, and incorporate that into their projects.
What they must not do is include copyrighted music in their videos, embed videos they did not produce, use images they did not create or otherwise present protected materials in their work on the website.
Make sure students are clear with sources and interview subjects that the projects will be online, available to anyone with an internet connection and a browser. Occasionally, people who have been interviewed for student projects tell us they had no idea their names, comments, quotes or personal stories would be on a public website.
As part of your instruction, make sure students understand the ethical considerations of working with sources for any of their projects, especially those where the work will be online. If you are not confident of a student’s practices, you may choose not to publish his or her work online.
Students and instructors may not upload files larger than 2MB to course websites.
Optimizing content for the web will allow students to work within that limit.
Students should resize images using a tool such as the “Save for Web” feature in Adobe Photoshop. This can be found under File > Export > Save for Web.
There, a user should then set the file type to .jpeg, and the longest edge to 2,000 pixels in the “Image Size” option.
This will allow students to save a high-quality image (up to 100 percent quality) within the 2MB limit.
Uncompressed files such as .wav and .aiff are too large for our system. Instead, please have students convert their files to .mp3s, which are compressed audio files. iTunes and VLC player have .mp3 converters built into their interfaces.
For longer audio files that are still over 2MB after conversion, students can upload the file to either Box or Kaltura — both available for free to IU students — and embed the file.
[kaltura_audio]URL TO KALTURA ITEM[/kaltura_audio]
Example: https://sites.mediaschool.indiana.edu/mschc226-showcase/2019/02/22/32176/
Video files can be huge, especially when dealing with high-resolution. Please ask students to use one of two IU-supported systems to host and embed videos: YouTube and Kaltura. Anyone with an IU account (faculty and students included) has access to unlimited hosting of videos on both of these services.
Kaltura is the preferred UITS tool.
After uploading a video file, the video can be embedded into a WordPress post using the following shortcode:
[kaltura]FULL URL TO VIDEO ON KALTURA[/kaltura]
Example:
[kaltura]https://iu.mediaspace.kaltura.com/media/IDS+150+Years/1_4nb7obxb[/kaltura]
Once you've read the course website policies and guidelines, submit your request to the communications team.
Request a websiteRequest your website as soon as possible, no less than two weeks before the start of the semester.
Your Media School-provided template will conform to IU branding guidelines. Students are free to use IU's branding elements, such as the official IU lower thirds for videos, in their projects.
Course websites are provided for the specific purposes of publishing your students' work. These resources can fulfill other publishing needs.
Contact Ross Hughes.
