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COD Library Copyright Guide: Finding Your Reposted Course Materials

Sites like Course Hero limit the number of documents you can view without creating an account, making it challenging for instructors to search for and identify their own course materials and file a takedown request. The Copyright Information Center at Cornell University Library recommends using Google's alert feature to create an automatic notification when select course materials appear on sites indexed by Google's search engine.

Remember, if you find course materials that YOU created on third-party websites that do not have your permission, you have the right to request that they are taken down.

  1. Use the online form provided by Learning Technologies 
  2. Send a takedown notice directly to the service provider

Use Google Alerts to Find Your Reposted Course Materials

Adapted from Cornell University Copyright Information Center

  1. If you have not yet done so, create a Google account. If you have a Google account, log into it for this process. You can create a new account just for this process or use a pre-existing one. To create a new account, go to Google's Create an Account page.
  2. Go to the Google Alerts page. On this page, you can configure a search that will periodically report on the content that you are searching for. You can indicate how often it searches, how many results to report, and where you want the results delivered via email.
  3. In the "Search terms:" field, enter one of the following, replacing "EDUCA 1105" with your course name.
  • EDUCA 1105 course notes college of dupage -site:cod.edu
  • EDUCA 1105 lecture notes college of dupage -site:cod.edu
  • EDUCA 1105 exam college of dupage -site:cod.edu
  • EDUCA 1105 problem set college of dupage -site:cod.edu
  • EDUCA 1105 homework college of dupage -site:cod.edu
  1. For "Type:", choose "Everything".
  2. For "How often:", choose how often you want to see a report. Your choices are "Once a day", "As-it-happens", and "Once a week".
  3. For "Volume:", you should choose "Only the best results". Otherwise, you will have to sort through a large number of repeated entries or incorrect results.
  4. For "Deliver to:", choose the email address you are logged in as. That email account will receive a message periodically (based on what you put for "How often:") with the search results. Check this account for results.
  5. If there are unique or uncommon words or phrases in your content, you should include those in your searches. For example, if a particular class in ORIE 3510 focused on a "widget", put the following in "Search items:":
  • EDUCA 1105 widget dupage -site:cod.edu

The information on this site is intended to inform the faculty, staff, and students at the College of DuPage about copyright and to provide guidelines for using and creating copyrighted material. The information should not be considered legal advice.

For more information contact the Library's Copyright Liaison.

  • URL: https://library.cod.edu/copyright
  • Last Updated: Apr 21, 2023 1:41 PM
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