Films & streaming video
While most streaming video available through the UA Libraries can't be accessed by non-UA affiliates off campus, there are other ways that instructors may legally make use of our films for noncredit use.
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Physical copies of films can be checked out from the UA Libraries by a UA faculty member, and the film can be screened in class or at an alternative time in a face-to-face venue. Our usual loan period for DVDs is 7 days, but that can be extended if needed — just contact us. If we don’t own the DVD yet, you can request a purchase.
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Streaming videos licensed by the UA Libraries and available through our website (see our film databases) may be used for on-campus, face-to-face instruction in a classroom, regardless of whether the course is credit-bearing or not.
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One-time educational uses of some Netflix documentaries are covered by the service's educational viewing license. To find out which titles are available, go to the "Only On Netflix" section of media.netflix.com. From there, navigate to "All Alphabetical." If the desired film is on the list, the instructor will need to access it in the classroom via their Netflix account. The educational viewing license doesn't apply to viewing outside the classroom.
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If off-campus access to streaming video is preferred, participants can rent, buy, or use their subscriptions to services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Hulu. Providers offer inexpensive access to a wide variety of online content. Try searching JustWatch.
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A limited amount of content may also be available for free in the public domain (try searching Internet Archive) or through a Creative Commons license (try Google’s advanced search using the usage rights filter).
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Pima County residents can access Pima County Public Library’s Kanopy subscription. Every PCPL cardholder can watch up to 10 Kanopy films per month. Learn how to get a PCPL card.
Articles, book chapters, & more
Online access
UA faculty, students, and staff have access to all of our online content (databases, journals, ebooks, streaming video, etc.) on campus or off (through NetID authentication). Campus visitors do not have off-campus access, but do have full access to our content, often including downloads, through UAGuest Wifi while they're on campus.
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Instructors can provide links or citations to online articles or other content in their syllabi that participants can read and/or download while on our campus, or the campus of some other university that gives the public access to their resources. This kind of access is supported by our licenses with information service providers.
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With more campuses establishing open access policies and more faculty uploading their articles to institutional repositories or academic social networking sites (such as Academia and ResearchGate), more and more scholarly work is becoming freely available online.
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Instructors may also prefer to point students to Amazon, Chegg, or other sources for online content they can rent or buy (and which may also be available in formats they prefer, like for Kindle or other eReaders).
Using our print collections
The Libraries deliver scanned copies of requested articles or book chapters from our print collections for UA faculty, students, and staff within the bounds of fair use. Faculty sometimes upload these PDFs into D2L Brightspace or another learning management system for their students to access as required course readings. Under fair use (Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act), making copies for classroom use is one of the purposes that's explicitly referenced in the law as non-infringing.
Fair use guidelines are flexible. Using an article, one or two book chapters, or less than 10-20% of another work can be used as a general rule of thumb in gauging the fairness of a use in an educational context. However, instructors must conduct their own fair use evaluations when making digitized copies of our print collections available to their students. Instructors should conduct their own fair use evaluations when making digitized copies of our print materials available to their students, but may want to confer with the UA Libraries' copyright specialist, especially in cases where the instructor will have less control over access to the content (e.g., in MOOCs or in other “open” course models).