Duke’s Office of Copyright and Scholarly Communication supports Duke’s research, teaching, and service mission by providing guidance for faculty, students, and staff in matters relating to the dissemination and use of knowledge. The Director of Copyright and Scholarly Communication is both a librarian and an attorney experienced in copyright and technology law.  He is available for individual consultations and to offer workshops and presentations; he also serves as a resource on local and national policy in order to help the Duke community stay informed and involved with the changing landscape for scholarly work and publication.

Duke Scholarly Communications blog 

Other Resources

• Information for Faculty Authors
• Copyright in Teaching
• Frequently Asked Questions
• University Policy on Copyright and Electronic Course Content

More about Scholarly Communication in Universities

Rapid technological change has caused the system of scholarly communications to grow increasingly complex over the past decade or so. 

As consumers of intellectual property, students and faculty have far more opportunities to use, modify and distribute the texts, images, sounds and video that are the basic materials of teaching and research.  They also increasingly encounter the restrictions placed on those activities by copyright and privacy laws, as well as technological barriers.

As creators of original content, students and faculty also have more options for communicating their work to others, whether through alternative publication models, traditional journals or Web distribution.  All of these new opportunities raise questions about how to protect the ownership and integrity of intellectual property while sharing it in ways that are most beneficial to both the creator and the scholarly community.

The Association of College and Research Libraries, has a useful definition of scholarly communications and a summary of the important issues.