The way you log into ReadingLists@UCL will shortly be changing.  In line with other UCL authentication, the authentication system is being migrated to a new service. This is part of ISD improvements to authentication and security at UCL.

There will be no downtime and no change to your access; the login screen will look slightly different and in fact is the same as you already use for your UCL email or Explore, the library catalogue. You will now be asked for your ‘userID@ucl.ac.uk’ (and not just userID).

The migration date is anticipated to be 30th January.

If you experience any issues at all please contact us at ReadingLists@UCL, or from a reading list you can use the ‘Feedback’ link at top of the page.

Hi all,

Having problems with the Moodle integration tool for embedding sections of your reading list ?

If you are, it is because of the last Moodle upgrade, which is causing a problem with autofilling users credentials into the various bits of Reading List activity. This is mainly affecting new academics.

Don’t despair, there is a fix ! Digital Education, often fondly known as the “Moodle folk” can sort this problem out for you. Just email Digital Education at digi-ed@ucl.ac.uk, and they should be able to resolve it for you, so you can continue adding sections of your reading lists in Moodle.

With the new academic year almost upon us, many academic and support staff will be working on getting reading lists ready for the start of term. This might feel like a daunting task at this very busy time of year. Particularly for those of you who are new to ReadingLists@UCL, or who may not have used it for some time.

We are therefore delighted to announce that on Friday 16th September a series of new ‘onboarding guides’ will be going live on ReadingLists@UCL. This will mean that when you visit ReadingLists@UCL to work on a reading list, you will be offered a series of short (~2-min) pop-up videos taking you through the key features of the system. These will cover:

• editing and organising your list;
• structuring your list;
• adding resources to your list;
• adding library and student notes on list items;
• publishing your list.

The idea is to provide guidance on the key elements of ReadingLists@UCL at the point it’s needed most (i.e. when you’re working on a list!). These unobtrusive pop-up guides will only be visible to academic and faculty staff, and they can be “snoozed” or even switched off entirely if you don’t want to see them.

This new feature will sit alongside the existing range of existing support and guidance around reading lists, including:

• the ReadingLists@UCL Libguide, which sets out in detail how to create and update your lists and embed them in Moodle;
• the Teaching and Learning Services (TLS) webpages, which outlines the many different services available from TLS, including the course readings service and copyright support; and
• personalised support delivered by the TLS team: whether you want a complete run-through of the system or just want a reminder on how to add a weblink, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If you have any questions at all about this new feature, or indeed about anything relating to reading lists, please don’t hesitate to email us at readinglists@ucl.ac.uk.

Image credit: “Books HD” by Abee5, licensed under CC BY 2.0

There are some small changes coming to reading lists that we want to let you know about in advance.

Some rights reserved https://www.flickr.com/photos/ramnaganat/7346166054/ ; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/

Bookmarking button

Some browsers are increasingly not working well with the ‘Bookmarking button’, which is used to harvest metadata for your online reading list.  For some years an alternative ‘bookmarklet extension’ has been available which is supported by newer browsers like Edge.  The bookmarklet extension is available for Edge, Chrome and Firefox browsers.  In some browsers you are able to create your own shortcut using a keystroke rather than a mouse click on the icon.

In a week or so you will begin to notice a pop up when you edit a reading list.  It will offer a prompt to use the new bookmark extension, which you can dismiss or ask to be reminded later.  You are welcome to use both or either bookmarking options: the existing bookmark button will continue to be available.  More detailed information can be found in the support article ‘Installing and using a bookmarklet extension’.

Upgrade to Moodle-ReadingLists@UCL integration

This upgrade (called LTI 1.3) will improve security and allow changes to improve the annual rollover: in practice this will negate the need for annual maintenance of links embedded in Moodle.  This upgrade is still in Beta testing but we will update here when there is more news.

We love to hear feedback on the service and any suggestions for development that would help you.  Please send comments to the ReadingLists@UCL email or use the ‘Feedback’ button at the top of ReadingLists@UCL.

The rollover is complete! All your 2019-20 reading lists have been archived and a copy created for 2020-21, which you can edit straight away.

• If modules are not running this year, please let us know so we can archive the list. This hides it from view to avoid confusion and also saves it for future re-use.
• To set up new lists get in touch or see our Getting Started help.

Over the summer you can prepare your reading lists for the new academic year: you just need to review, edit and publish!

Do my digitised readings also roll forward?

When your new list is created, the digitised readings (digitised under the CLA licence and added to your list by the TLS team) also copy forward.  There is a separate, behind-the-scenes process in June where the readings are re-checked automatically for the coming year. If your module is not running let us know so we can archive the digitised readings, ready for another year.

If any digitised readings were not digitised under the CLA licence, but instead had direct copyright permission granted then the links to these readings will temporarily break.  TLS need to re-request copyright permission for the coming year and re-instate the links to the digital reading.  This is a task that TLS does annually and they will be in touch if your readings are affected.

And finally don’t forget the editing interface is being updated on 16th July.  See the Editing Interface Upgrade blog post for more details.

ReadingLists@UCL has had access to a new editing interface for more than a year and many new list editors are already using it.  July 16th will see the final change to the new editing interface when the rest of UCL switches over.  This will only be noticable to people with editing access to a reading list.

Click to enlarge

If you are currently using the ‘Classic’ editing view which looks like this (click on thumbnail to enlarge), then on July 16th the view will change.

The new look is … well, a good deal like the usual view!  Once logged

(Click to enlarge)

in though, moving editing buttons (‘Add resource / Add paragraph / Add section’) become available as you move around the screen.  To the far right of the resource the ellipsis or three dots indicate a drop down menu of more options.

The main change is that you stay in the usual list view to edit, much like editing a Moodle page.

• For a demonstration, our two short ‘Getting started…’ videos (under ‘Quick guides’) show how to edit a reading list using the new view.
• You may also find interesting A short ‘overview’ article by the software creator, Talis, on the new list view.  This is not specific to UCL and uses different branding.

Please get in touch with us for help, including the following:

• a 1:1 guided Teams session on how to edit and manage your reading list
• to request editing access to a reading list, or for a new list to be set up
• library assistance with populating your reading list

Google Chrome version 80 is being rolled out.  After 17th February using Chrome 80 may cause an error logging to some services, including ReadingLists@UCL.

If you use Chrome 80 and find you are unable to log in, workarounds include:

• Use a different browser.
• Use Desktop@UCL: UCL has not yet updated its Chrome browser so it will work fine.
• Change the SameSite settings in your Chrome 80 browser.  Details of how to do this are in yesterday’s ISD update post.

Talis, the software owner behind ReadingLists@UCL, is also working to solve this from their end.  For the most up to date information on this please check the ISD homepage notices.

The current and last versions of Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Microsoft Edge are officially supported for using with with ReadingLists@UCL; previous versions are supported to best efforts.  The reading lists team recommend using Firefox  as we find it to be most compatible for editing lists. You can find which version of your browser you are using by using the ‘Help’ or ‘About’ in your browser Menu Bar; you can find which are the most recent versions on websites like Browse Happy or through the browser’s official website.

To add readings into your reading list you will need to add a ‘Bookmarking button’ into your browser. You only need to do this once, it is quick to do and we offer to help with a quick orientation.  Here are some screencasts for adding the bookmarking button in Firefox and adding the bookmarking button in Safari (34 seconds long, with no text description: please contact us for assistance with an alternative format). Each browser is set up differently, so occasionally you will need to first reveal the ‘Bookmarks toolbar’ on your browser.

Microsoft Edge has limitations on its support for JavaScript bookmarklets, so if you use this browser you may have had problems using the usual bookmarking button.  To resolve this a new browser extension is available: this article on bookmarking extensions from the software developer, Talis, gives information on how to download and use the extension (N.B. the ‘known issue’ they mention has already been resolved).  The extension is also available for Chrome and Firefox.

There is also planned functionality to be added into the new list editing view, currently being developed.  The new list editing view is in beta testing and will be rolled out to UCL in summer 2020, there will be a follow up blog post about this!

Image of new reading list view. Click to enlarge.

The new list view for ReadingLists@UCL will be rolled out to UCL on 30th July 2019.

The new list view has been developed to improve performance, including on mobile devices. More importantly, it meets web accessibility standards making it inclusive for all UCL users.  Updating the look will ensure that online reading lists are fully compliant with the 2018 UK Accessibility regulations. Talis (the company which powers the ReadingLists@UCL software) has a Web Accessibility Statement which gives further details, inlcluding information on compatibility with screen readers and additional help on using accessibility tools with ReadingLists@UCL.

Some list editors have been using the new list veiw in Beta for the past few months: the ‘classic’ view will now be replaced.  There is a walkthrough video of the new look for student users – and anyone else curious to take a look.

Notices were sent to subject librarians, the Departmental Administrator’s forum, and Digital Education, to cascade to reading lists users.  If you have any questions about the new look please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the ReadingLists@UCL team.

Looking ahead…

The next developments will be a new Moodle integration in summer 2019, in conjunction with the Moodle team.  An update to the list editing view has been developed but won’t be rolled out to UCL until summer 2020: list editors who like the look of this are welcome to start using the Beta editing view from August 2019, just get in touch to arrange this.

In addition to the Moodle and module code changes, UCL library also has some upgrades this summer.

As mentioned in an earlier post, a new Explore interface was soft-launched in autumn 2017.  On Monday 10th September 2018 this will become the only Explore search and the ‘Classic Explore’ will be retired.  The underlying library catalogue is also being migrated to newer software.

What does this mean for ReadingLists@UCL?

When bookmarking paper books and journals from the UCL catalogue, please continue to use the Classic Explore catalogue, which looks like this (click to enlarge):

ReadingLists@UCL can only interact with one catalogue interface, so until the 10th September the reading lists will continue to work optimally with Classic Explore. On the 10th September Classic Explore will be retired and ReadingLits@UCL will have its settings changed to work with the new Explore.

This does not affect e-resources: you can bookmark as usual from e-journals, e-books, TV and film resources, and more.

How will I know when to use the new Explore?

The new look Explore will become the only version of Explore on 10th September.  It looks like this:

Are there any other changes?

The SFX@UCL button found on some electronic resources will be re-named, as the underlying software has changed.  The new ‘FindIt@UCL’ button will work in the same way, leading you to the online resource.

As part of the migration there will be a circulation freeze from 5th-10th September.  This means the ‘Availability’ information on Explore might not be correct; this only affects physical books and journals that can be borrowed from the library.  Availability information is also shown in online reading lists so students and staff should be wary of this; you can ask your site library staff about book availability.

Reading lists can usually be found in the Explore catalogue, however as they are listed under their former module codes, and are in the process of having their module codes updated, the information is out of date.  We have decided to remove this information until all lists have a new module code, when we will add them back into the catalogue.

For more details on this Explore upgrade, including updates about outages, please see the UCL Library news webpage.