Electronic Course Materials

Electronic Course Materials

Faculty members are welcome to post materials to their course sites in Sakai or Google.

These materials are are subject to Wellesley's Copyright and Fair Use Guidelines.

Please read the copyright guidelines and other information below to ensure that you remain within the limits of copyright and Fair Use. Reserves staff are available to answer any questions--see "Contact Us" to the left. Unusual copyright questions can be address to the college's Copyright Office, Graham Henderson, at x3514.

Please read through the following sections for more information about how to select materials and add them to your Sakai or Google sites.

 

 

 

Using Electronic Materials in Sakai

Managing Materials in Sakai

Managing your electronic materials in Sakai can range from moving your readings and other materials from the Resources section of one course site to another, or reusing other types of electronic materials from a course previously taught in Sakai, please consult the Sakai documentation for further information.

 

 

Using Electronic Materials in Google

  1. Locate the files you wish to make available to the students in your course.
  2. Go into your Google Drive and create a folder under MyDrive with a descriptive name (i.e. the course name, number and semester).
  3. Upload the files from your computer into the folder
  • you can select and drag into the folder or you can use the Upload button and navigate to the files you wish to upload.
  1. Share the folder with the course's Google Group
  • go up to the Share button in the upper right corner
  • begin typing the Google Group's name (e.g. ECON-101-01...) - make sure to choose the current semester's Group
  • change the permissions for your Group from "Can Edit" to "Can View"
  • make sure the "Notify via email" box is checked
  • click Share & Save

You can find instructions on creating and organizing folders here and directions on how to Share folders here.

If you would like to re-use E-Reserves you have used in past semesters and you do not have copies of the materials archived on your computer, you can download them in bulk from Sakai by logging in, going into My Workspace -> Resources -> Upload/Download Multiple Resources, and then following the directions that correspond to your computer's OS.

 

 

Brief Instructions for New Materials

  1. Check that all materials follow copyright guidelines.  Wellesley's Copyright Policy dictates that you can generally post 1 article from a journal issue or 1 chapter from a book. Multiple articles or chapters can be posted only if the total number of pages on reserve does not exceed 10% of the journal issue or book or if special permission has been received. Material that is not subject to copyright can be posted in entirety.
  2. Ensure that your materials are compliant with accessibility best practices.
  3. Take your readings to the Copy Center. Make sure they are clear copies and that they include full bibliographic information as well as the course information. The Copy Center will scan your e-reserves and send the file back to you. You may post the content at your convenience. Note: Scanned PDFs from the Copy Center will be partly accessibility-compliant due to having the text editable, but they will not have text labels for the images or graphics in the document, which are essential. To manually add image tags to your PDF’s images, open the file in Adobe Acrobat Pro DC and use the “Set Alternative Text” command in the Accessibility tool. If you want all of the accessibility features enabled, it is recommended that you run the document through the Adobe Acrobat Pro Accessibility Checker and manually correct any errors with structural tags, as well as alternative text to all images. Finally, Copy Center PDFs are often scanned with two pages of text per sheet of paper, which is not ideal for accessibility. If scanning documents yourself, please do one page of text per sheet of paper.
  4. If you already have .pdfs, add bibliographic coversheets to them using the instructions below.  For all pdfs, please ensure that the file size is small (~1MB) and that the file does not include any black margins or fuzzy backgrounds. Adobe Acrobat Professional is the best tool to reduce file size and clean up the image. This can be difficult and time-intensive, and the Copy Center is often the best choice for producing clean e-reserves scans.
  5. To post the materials in your Sakai course site:
    1. Save the pdf to your desktop or an easy to locate folder.
    2. In your course site, open the Resources tool.
    3. From the Add menu, select Upload Files.
    4. Browse for the pdf, and select Upload Files Now.

 

 

 

Adding Bibliographic Coversheets

All materials used for courses need to have complete bibliographic information included with them.  Materials scanned by the Copy Center are sent to you with coversheets that include this information. If you are scanning your own materials or using pdfs downloaded from databases, please include a bibliographic coversheet to identify the material. Download the coversheet here. (Opens in Word)

To Add Coversheets to PDFs

  1. Save the document as a pdf (Word 2007: Office icon--> Save As --> PDF or XPS;  Word 2003: File --> Save As --> Save as type --> PDF). Change the document name from "coversheet" to a name that will indicate what article it corresponds to.  Select Publish.
  2. The pdf will automatically open in Adobe Acrobat.  
  3. From the icons in the header of the document, select Combine Files.
  4. In the window that pops up, select Add files.
  5. Locate the article, single click on it, and then select Add Files.
  6. Select Create.
  7. Select Save.  This may take a few moments to become available, depending on the size of the files.
  8. Give the file an appropriate name, such as Course# - Title - Author, select the folder where you want it to be saved, and click Save.
  9. The merged pdf will automatically open.

 

Copyright Guidelines

All journal articles, book chapters, reprints, excerpts, e-books, and other course materials that meet the Wellesley College Fair Use Copyright guidelines should be placed on e-reserve.

Copyright and Fair Use apply per class, per semester, and faculty are responsible for adhering to copyright laws. This means that you can post one chapter of a book for one class and a different chapter of the same book for a different class and be within the limits for Fair Use. You cannot, however, post a chapter, remove it after a week, and post another chapter. The Fair Use limit is cumulative throughout the semester even if you remove the materials.

A convenient, printable document with all of this information can be downloaded here.

Some materials are always acceptable to upload:

  • URL links to materials that are already available online
    • Websites, government documents, journal articles in Wellesley's library databases, e-books, etc.
    • Wellesley's library catalog will provide direct links to online resources, so start there to find material that is already available electronically.
      • If "online" or "Electronic Resource" appears in the journal title, your title is available electronically.
      • If "An electronic book accessible through the World Wide Web; click to view" appears in the box above the title, your title is available electronically.
    • Library staff from the Research and Instruction Group are happy to help you find stable URLs. Stop by any reference desk, call x2166 or email AskUs.
  • Government documents in any format
  • Works that are in the Public Domain
  • Your own unpublished work
    • Lecture notes, practice exams, answer keys, etc.
  • One (1) chapter OR up to 10% of a given work that is under copyright
    • In the case of a journal, you can use one article per issue or up to 10% of the issue.
    • In the majority of cases, the copyright for your own published work is held by the publisher--you will still need to apply this 1 chapter/10% limit to your own published writing.
  • More than 1 chapter or 10% of a given work when written permission has been secured from the publisher. Please include the written statement from the publisher on the e-reserve coversheet.
     

Some materials are never acceptable to upload:

  • Scanned or downloaded materials that account for more than 1 chapter or 10% of a work under copyright.
  • For copyright purposes, downloading articles from a database is just like scanning or photocopying.

If you have material that doesn't fit into one of these categories, please consult our Copyright Officer Graham Henderson (x3514) for additional information.

 

Supporting Documents

Bibliographic coversheet

  • Please fill out the form in full and scan it at the beginning of any new e-reserves. This will help identify the material.

Copyright and Copywrong