RLO: Introduction to Reading Lists Onine

Reading Lists Online can help to deliver an excellent learning experience for students by providing seamless access to all their required reading from the Blackboard module site.  

Reading lists can also be a powerful teaching tool helping students to plan their reading, engage with a diverse range of materials, develop skills around evaluating resources and become independent learners.  

Key benefits of Reading Lists Online: 

• Resources that are required for teaching purposes are ordered through the Reading List Online system. If you require any resources that are not currently available in the Library they can be added to an RLO. This will trigger an order request.
• Provide students with easy access to high quality academic materials.  This includes direct links to eBooks, journal articles, digitised book chapters, websites, media resources and links to Library Search catalogue records for print resources.
• Lists can be created and updated by academics with resources that support the learning objectives for the module.
• Library staff can review lists to ensure that all recommended reading is readily available though the Library.
• All material on a list is checked for copyright compliance, so academics can be assured that all resources meet copyright regulations.
• Once created, the list is automatically uploaded to the relevant Blackboard module site.
• Get statistics on what your students are accessing and how they are engaging with their recommended reading.
• Research shows that student experiences of using reading lists can be extremely positive, with 87.4% agreeing with the statement 'Do you find your reading list useful' (McGuinn et al., 2017).

Reading Lists Online is the standard way all taught students can access their directed reading. The following recommended standards are designed to help give students an excellent experience using reading lists.

These are the recommended standards for Reading Lists Online:

• Reading lists should be well structured to guide the student to relevant reading throughout the module (for example Week by Week, Lecture by Lecture, Themes, etc).

• Required reading should be marked as 'Essential' and additional or supporting reading indicated as 'Background' or 'Optional' reading.

• If your RLO does not set importance for each resource (i.e. Essential/Background), Learning and Teaching (L&T) Librarians will contact academics and ask them to identify 10-15 books that will feature highly in their teaching.  This is especially important with long lists (over 75 items).  The selected texts will be checked for eBook availability and the academics will be notified to allow them to decide which items should be made 'Essential'. L&T Librarians can also provide advice on alternative resources in the subject areas. For information on who is your L&T Librarian, please check the Directory of Subject Librarians below.

• Where print format is the only option, items should not be made 'Essential'.

• For Essential reading, the Library will aim to acquire a multi-access electronic version. Where resources are available in print format only, or with limited electronic access, extracts should be selected for digitisation. The CLA Licence allows a limited amount of scanning of chapters and articles subject to certain conditions. The amount, that is restricted to a specified course module, applies to photocopying and scanning (digitisation): 
  • one article per journal issue or 10%, whichever is the greater
  • one chapter per book or 10%, whichever is the greater
  • one poem/short story from an anthology, not exceeding 10 pages

  • Items are scanned and made available via RLO. If a book chapter or journal article is listed in RLO, we will try to make it available online from existing sources or through digitisation. For a chapter, you can either add the chapter and add a note to the library asking us to digitise it, or add the book and add a note to the library stating which chapter you would like digitised. For a journal article, add the details of the article with a note to digitise it.

    Alternatively, urgent requests can be made using the online digitisation request form.

    Digitising materials is subject to rigorous checking, logging and reporting to the CLA.  Library Services undertakes this work and a centralised service is provided to ensure compliance with the Licence. It is strongly recommended not to add scanned pdf versions of journal articles or book chapters to Blackboard module sites as they will not have undergone this rigorous checking process and they may not be in an accessible format.

• Your reading list will automatically be linked from Blackboard, on the module home page. In order for this to happen, your reading list will need to include the module code under the Hierarchy. It is also possible to link to specific sections in your RLO in corresponding sections on your Blackboard module site. For more information see the section on Working with RLO > Your RLO on Blackboard.

• Wherever possible, student numbers on the module should be included on the RLO.

• Reading lists should be created and/ or updated and published in a timely manner, to ensure that materials will be available for the start of teaching. If possible, RLOs should be sent for Review published by the end of July for Semester 1 modules, and by the end of November for Semester 2 modules.

If you wish to discuss any aspect of your reading list please contact the relevant subject librarian for your course: