There are more considerations when you want to incorporate copyrighted material in your own work that will be shared on the Internet for anyone to access. In general, copying a sentence or short paragraph only requires providing credit to the author and source. However, if you need to copy more than this amount, you will need to ensure that your use is copyright compliant, meaning that it is supported by fair dealing or another exception in the Canadian Copyright Act. Otherwise, permission is needed to use the copyrighted material.
With the Fair Dealing Guidelines that many professors use to copy and share copyrighted materials with students in their courses, it is limited to sharing in SLATE or a password-protected online learning environment.
To do a complete fair dealing evaluation for an OER project, you will need to use the 6 factors established by the Supreme Court of Canada. Sam Cheng, the Copyright Coordinator (copyright@sheridancollege.ca) can help you with the evaluation and suggest alternatives if needed.
If you are working with other faculty and/or students on an open educational resource, it would be helpful for your team to have an agreement or memorandum of understanding that outlines rights and responsibilities as well as licensing of the work. It can help mitigate any confusion related to intellectual property rights of collaborators. Here are some templates that can be adapted for the specific needs of a project: