Copyright is a legal system that protects ‘intellectual effort’ automatically. Basically, if you write, draw or otherwise create something then you get to say what should happen to that material. Copyright is one of a number of ‘intellectual property rights’, the other well known ones being patent, design and trade mark rights.
As a student of the University, you will own the copyright in your work unless you have been employed specifically to produce the work (in which case your employer will own the work), or you enter into an agreement with someone else (eg a sponsoring organization or a publisher) and assign them the copyright – usually in exchange for money commonly known as ‘royalties’.
Whatever the exact circumstances, your material will be covered by UK laws and International agreements. The current law is the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which has been amended since then by a number of ‘Statutory Instruments’, usually dealing with specialist areas.
If you want to look at the legislation ‘in the raw’, then see the original Act:
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_1.htm
or a consolidated version that includes all the subsequent amendments: