At some universities in Africa, access to the internet is limited. As a result, academics may want to upply third-party readings or articles to their students in print form or on a CD ROM/DVD for a specific course. This is the use of material for education purposes for a specific number of users. For those documents that have conventional copyright, permission needs to be sought from copyright holders, or an agency operating on behalf of copyright holders, to print and distribute the readings or articles to the students.
Some universities may have sufficient internet access and may be able to supply the readings or articles in digital format through the internet or a local intranet. This situation may include documents to be placed on the university intranet under password protection, so that the number of people who will be downloading the readings or articles can be limited. Depending on the type of access and jurisdication, local law may require permission from copyright holders for this use.
Universities or organizations may want to release third-party readings or articles as OER. This would mean that these would be made into freely accessible resources (either posted on a website or supplied in print form or CD ROM/DVD), likely under a Creative Commons licence. As OER are publicly accessible, this use would require permission from copyright holders.
