Does your Moodle course contain PDF or Word document readings that may not be accessible, or links that don’t work off-campus?  Have you taken over a module and need help tidying documents into a reading list? Good news:  Teaching and Learning Services (TLS)  can help!

Teaching and Learning Services in the library manages both ReadingLists@UCL and the UCL copyright licences.  Given access to Moodle, or a list of readings, they can undertake a one-off project to re-create your reading list in ReadingLists@UCL and update your links and documents to be both copyright compliant and more accessible.

Owl postcard for readinglists@ucl

We will give you editing access and offer orientation training so that you or a colleague can take over managing your list once set up.

Contact readinglists@ucl.ac.uk and ask for a ‘Moodle Health Check’. Please note: we are very busy around the start of Terms 1 and 2 but we will let you know a timeline that accommodates our existing workload.

The rollover is complete! All your 2018-19 lists have been archived and a copy created for 2019-20, which you can edit straight away.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 please get in touch or see our Getting Started advice.

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 TLS) also copy forward.  There is a separate, behind-the-scenes process in June where the readings are re-checked automatically for the coming year.  The only exceptions are a few readings which are not digitised under the CLA licence, but instead had direct copyright permission granted: the links to these readings will temporarily break until the permission is re-requested for the coming year.  This is a task that TLS does annually and they will be in touch if your readings are affected.

And finally don’t forget a new user interface is being introduced on 30th July.  See the Summer Update blog post for more, or view the walkthrough video to see how it will look.

Traffic Cones!!! by Natesh Ramasamy

Today an academic alerted us to a problem with a small number of the course readings we make available through our Course Readings service. These readings are digitised by the library under the CLA licence, and made available as a link on the online reading lists.

In January we migrated all course readings to be hosted by the CLA Content Store, enabling us to benefit from the large number of digitised readings already available from other Universities – which reduces the amount of scanning needed from departments.

However a small number of readings remained on the UCL server where we originally stored them.  These weren’t updated for various reasons, such as: links to digitised readings were copied from one list to another without notifying the TLS to re-check them; students were being directed to archived lists; the lists and readings were used in years previous to 2015-16 but had not been updated.

What are we doing to solve the issue?  We ran a report of all readings across all 2017-18 reading lists and identified those with the older style link.  The TLS team ‘copyright checkers’ are checking the readings still fall under the CLA licence and completing our compliance adminstration.  The TLS ‘digitising and lists’ team are updating each link in the online reading list.  We are prioritising first those lists we have been told are in use, and then those modules which are running in 2017-18 according to Portico.  For those lists not running this year, we will be in touch with the department to ask if the readings will be needed at a future date.

Please note: if you have copied any links to add to Moodle or other places, we won’t be able to update these as we only have access to the online reading lists. Let us know if you find any broken links and we will create a working URL for your online reading list.

If you have used the ‘Request review’ option on your reading list in the past year, we will have auotmatically double-checked the links on your reading list.

If you have any questions, please email, or call the TLS team on 020 3549 5729 (internal x65729).

A timely question today from a UCL medical department.  Having seen that the online reading lists will roll over on Tuesday 17th July, they ask ‘when my reading list becomes a 2017-18 list, will the digitised readings on it also roll forward and remain available?’.

‘Readings’ by Ben Terrett CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

All online reading lists roll forward and have a new version for 2017-18 created. If a department lets us know a module isn’t running we will archive the list so it isn’t visible for the coming year.

When lists roll forward, any readings that the library has digitised will also roll forward and remain available. The majority of these readings are digitised using the CLA licence. These have a little auto-check as occasionally rights holders withdraw from the licence, however we find that almost all readings are fine to re-use the next year.

Just a few readings will not be available by virtue of having individual copyright permission requested. The TLS team will need to re-request the copyright permission if the readings are to be used again in the coming year.  We email the academic or list owner for confirmation that they would like to re-use the same readings for next year:

• If they are required then we re-request the copyright permission and the department covers any fees incurred, as usual.
• If the readings are not needed, or if there is no reply from the department or tutor, then unfortunately we will have to remove the reading from the reading list as it won’t be covered by any permission for that year.

Our course readings webpage has more information on digitising readings under the CLA licence and how we request copyright permission.  Please do get in touch if you have any questions!

Alas no, as this would not comply with copyright regulations, but there may be selected extracts and contents pages available which is still really, really useful!

The Preview automatically links to Google Books and pulls in text from there, so is only available for some books.  Do be aware that the preview could be removed by Google at any time!

If the chapter you need is not available from the preview, which I know is very frustrating, you can always enquire about the possibility of digitisation from Teaching and Learning Services (TLS), who are happy to assist you.  We use UCL’s copyright licences to make copyright compliant copies for teaching with.

The example below shows how the preview is displayed in an online reading list: you can use the search box, and arrow buttons to navigate through the preview. Happy previewing!

Puzzled about how to add digitised readings to your online reading lists for students? Concerned about mysterious pdfs in Moodle?  Or worried about the copyright issues in course readings?

Then worry no more as the Teaching and Learning Services (TLS) are here to help! We offer advice and help to ensure course readings are copyright compliant, using UCL’s CLA licence, and other licencing schemes such as the NLA, and ERA where appropriate. Our course readings service will check readings are legally compliant under one of these licences and add the digitised readings to your online reading list.

To find out more feel free to “drop-in” to TLS (Senate House, room 317, 3^rd floor, South Block) between 2.30-4.30 pm on Wednesdays. Contact us at: library-tlss@ucl.ac.uk. We also have webpages with information at your fingertips about the course readings service that you might find helpful.

“How do I add a digitised reading to my online reading list?” is one of our most frequently asked questions.

Many core texts you are able to add yourself, where UCL already subscribes to the full text. Bookmark these types of resources into your reading list in the usual way:

• E-journal articles
• e-books
• Radio or TV programmes

If there is a key reading that you would like to make available, such as a chapter of a book with no existing online version, then the TLSS can help.  The TLSS manages UCL’s CLA licence which enables us to digitise readings within certain limits.  Send us a photocopy or pdf of the extract with a cover sheet.  We will:

• Confirm receipt and give you an estimated timescale
• Copyright check the reading and fulfil the technical and reporting requirements of the licence
• Digitise and upload the reading. Highlight to students that the reading is digitised using the ‘student note’.
• Email to notify you when the reading is available on the online reading list.

Using this route will ensure your readings are copyright compliant and accessible to students alongside all their other core readings.  Find more information on our course readings webpages.

For a reminder on how to get started with your online reading list, see the Quick Guide, look at our FAQs or call in to a Wednesday afternoon drop-in session.