Guide for Contributors

A resource guide for contributors to Teachit sites

This guide includes advice on the types of resources we’re looking for, copyright guidelines and some things to check before submitting your resources.

General advice

Teachit’s sites are eclectic, reflecting the fact that our resources are submitted and used by a wide range of teachers. We have no hard and fast rules as to what you may or may not submit, and no templates. We’re simply after your best ideas – those resources that you have used successfully with your own classes and that you believe other teachers will find useful.

That said, it would be helpful if you could bear in mind the following basic guidelines:

1. Resources need to be clearly presented for others. We are unlikely to accept materials which would need a lot of reworking or restructuring before they could readily be understood and used by other teachers.

2. It helps us if all work submitted is accurate – you’d be amazed how many typos we see!

3. Simple ideas are often extremely effective, but many resources we receive need more substance (perhaps in the form of additional ideas or more advice) in order to be suitable for publication.

4. Many of the PowerPoint presentations we see are essentially ‘static’. Our policy is not to publish PowerPoint resources which simply deliver information or advice. If you’d like to submit either PowerPoint resources or resources made with IWB software such as SMART Notebook or Promethean ActivStudio, please ensure that these are interactive and suitable for classroom use.

5. We have a wide range of Flash-based templates from which we can make interactive versions of traditional paper-based activities. We like to publish both versions, so that teachers have a choice. If you think that a resource of yours has interactive potential, do point this out when you submit it.

6. We’d love more audio and video files. If you’re interested in submitting your own recordings, please contact us first, as the people involved in them will need to complete a consent form. We will provide this for you, along with a few simple dos and don’ts.

Copyright guidelines

We have to be very careful about copyright. Although you’re entitled to use some copyright texts and images within your own resources for your own teaching, different rules apply when it comes to publishing them.

Copyright regulations

· The copyright for most images belongs either to the artist/photographer or to the gallery/museum which holds the image. The availability of an image on the internet does not necessarily mean that it is copyright free!

· A text remains in copyright for 70 years following the author’s death.

· Short extracts from texts may be published so long as they don’t represent a ‘substantial part’ of the whole text – a rough guide is an extract of about 250 words from a typical book.

· Where extracts take the form of short, separate quotations, a little more leeway can be taken – but those quotations must still not amount to a ‘substantial part’ of the whole text.

· Material from feature films and TV programmes (extracts and stills) may not be used without the consent of the producer, the distributors and often the ‘stars’.

Keeping clear of copyright restrictions

There are a number of approaches you can take. The most obvious, of course, is not to use any copyright material within your resources, but as we’re well aware, a resource will often depend upon a bit of text or an image. Here are some suggestions:

References

It’s perfectly acceptable simply to refer to a text, picture, advert, film or TV programme. If you do so, please be precise about the edition used and relevant page numbers when referring to books, and give scene numbers, timings etc. when referring to films.

Internet links

Texts and images are often readily available on the internet. We may not be able to publish them ourselves, but teachers using our resources will be able to access them and, if they’re members, incorporate them within the resource themselves. Where possible, please avoid ‘deep linking’ to a page within the website: instead, give a link to the site’s home page and a ‘pathway’ to the relevant page.

Writing/drawing your own

The creative option! We love getting resources from you which include your own photographs/illustrations/texts, etc. Go for it!

Image banks

There’s no need for you to provide ‘decorative’ images: the following guidance is only for images that you need to include as an intrinsic part of a resource.

Altenatively, you might like to try Creative Commons on Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/ – where a large number of images have an ‘Attribution License’. You can search all the photos with an Attribution licence here: http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/by-2.0/. When you submit resources to us which use Flickr images, please include the URL (web address) for each image.

Obtaining permission

Our contributors have had considerable success in obtaining permission for the use of copyright material. Copyright holders tend to look kindly on individual teachers and will often grant permission free of charge – so it’s well worth asking.

The form of words can be kept very simple:

I am a teacher from xxx school/college in xxx. I would like to use the enclosed image / text from xxx on resources I am producing in preparation for xxx. [Include more information on how the resource will help students, if appropriate.]

I would also like to make the resources I produce available on www.teachitxxx, a website which enables teachers to share the resources they produce, and it is mainly for this reason that I am seeking permission. I would, of course, credit xxx as copyright holder.

If and when you obtain written permission, please forward it to us, stating clearly which resource it applies to.

If the copyright holder wants to charge you for the use, please don’t pay! Forward the reply to us and we’ll decide whether or not to go ahead with the material you’ve used.

Acknowledging sources

It’s essential that you acknowledge all the sources you’ve used within your resources. Please do so within the resource itself (including, where relevant, the name of the copyright holder and the year of publication) and put any additional information in the notes field on submission. If you’ve adapted your resource from another source, please let us know about this too.

Some practicalities: things to check

1. Some good resources speak for themselves; others need a little explanation. We welcome a page of simple teachers’ notes where appropriate: this may include guidelines on timing and managing activities.

2. Please include teachers’ answers to tasks wherever necessary.

3. If a resource is designed for a particular exam, please give details. Double-check your resource against the specification to ensure any information given about the exam is accurate and up-to-date.

4. Background notes or information included in a resource must be the result of genuine research (i.e. synthesized from several reliable sources). Please check this is the case and acknowledge your sources where applicable.

5. Acknowledge the sources of any images you have used (see ‘Copyright guidelines’ above).

6. If your resource is based on a text, please include page numbers (or act, scene, line numbers) alongside quotations where this is helpful for the activity. Please double-check your quotations against the text for accuracy. When you submit your resource, let us know which edition of the text you have used.

A few formatting rules

Please make sure you adhere to the following simple formatting rules. This will enable us to process your resources more quickly.

1. Your resources should be formatted as Word documents unless there is a clear rationale for using another file type (e.g. Publisher or PowerPoint).

2. Please use Times New Roman, Arial or Trebuchet font, point size 12 (or 14 for headings). Headings or subheadings can be emboldened or underlined, but not both.

3. Use left justification throughout.

4. Strip out clipart (images will be added in-house as part of the formatting process) and borders.

Finally, please proofread your resources before submitting them.

Thank you. We look forward to seeing your resources! If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to contact us.