Readings Online allows you to add, organize and control your readings and ensures copyright compliance. Access to Readings Online is seamless via your LMS subject page. Follow these simple steps to get started.

Readings Online: Benefits of the Service

Readings Online is a service for academic staff that provides access to subject readings via the LMS and manages the University’s copyright obligations when making copyright material available to students.

New specialized software has meant improvements for staff making subject readings available – it’s quicker and easier – and also for students accessing the readings.

To manage risk and be copyright compliant, staff must use Readings Online when providing access to PDFs of subject readings. Staff can also upload images, sound recordings and music and video clips.

Other benefits in using Readings Online include:

• Students will have a consistent experience. Readings Online is integrated with the LMS making it easy for students to find their subject readings regardless of subject.
• All readings regardless of format can be found in one location.  Readings Online supports not just pdfs of documents but also images, sound recordings, film clips and websites.
• Readings can be easily organised into categories as desired, e.g. by week, by topic, by format, or the type of reading, for example ‘required’ or ‘optional’.
• Readings are provided in an accessible format, ensuring that all students can access their readings and assisting the University to meet its accessibility obligations.
• Statistics are provided on how many students have accessed each reading.
• Once readings have been added to the Readings Online database, they can be easily shared by other subjects and reused the following year.

New features have been implemented for Readings Online. These include:

• A simpler process for reusing items in your reading list for a new teaching period.
• Multiple reading lists – have different lists for different teaching periods, e.g. Semester 1/Intensive.
• Apply a teaching period or custom dates to the whole reading list, rather than entering for each reading.
• Add music, sound recordings, films and images to your reading list (copyright permitting).
• Improved features for managing readings lists including the ability to hide readings from students.
• Student view – preview what your students will see.
• Removal of the unit library (we will migrate these resources for you).

To find out more about the new features, you can attend an information session during June and July. Click the button below to view and register for an upcoming session:

Readings Online Information Sessions

Reusing items for a new teaching period

Readings are only available for a specified period, such as a semester.  Previously, at the start of a new semester or teaching period, expired readings had to be rolled over to make them active again and available to students.  Each reading had to be rolled over individually as there was no option available to roll over all readings in a list.

A new feature has been created that allows you to copy an existing list and use it for a different teaching period.  You can copy the whole list or selected readings.  Once copied into the new list, readings are automatically reactivated for the new teaching period.

Further details on Creating new reading lists will be published on 4 July 2018.  If you would like more information, please contact Readings Online.

Multiple reading lists

You can now have multiple readings lists for the same subject.  For example, this means that if you are teaching a subject for as both an intensive and semester, you can have a different reading list for each teaching period.

Further details on Creating multiple lists will be published on 4 July 2018.  If you would like more information, please contact Readings Online.

Apply dates for whole reading lists

Readings are only made available to students for specified date, e.g. Semester 1.  You can now apply a date for the whole reading list when creating it.  You can select from predefined dates, which match the most common teaching periods, or create a custom date period if the predefined dates are not suitable. This date will then apply to all reading rather than entering a date for each individual reading.

Further details on Creating new reading lists will be published on 4 July 2018.  If you would like more information, please contact Readings Online.

Adding music, sound recordings, films and images

Music and other sound recordings, films and images can now be uploaded to Readings Online. Previously, links to these resources could be uploaded but they were treated as websites which meant that the citations were not always complete or in the correct format.  There are new templates for sound recordings and visual resources (films and images) so that correct citations will be displayed.  The new templates also mean that copies of sound recordings, films and images can be uploaded (copyright permitting) if the resource is not available online.

More information on adding sound recordings and visual resources will be available soon.

Managing reading lists

There are several new features to make it easier to organize and manage your readings.  These include:

• Expand All and Collapse All – If your readings are organized in groups, expand all will open all group folders displaying all readings within the group.  Collapse all will close all the group folders.  You can open individual group folders by click on the check box or the folder name.



• Selecting groups or multiple readings – You can select all the readings within in group with a single click.  You can also select multiple readings from the same different groups to move in bulk.



• Hide readings – You can hide readings that you do not want your students to see.



• Improved drag and drop for arranging readings.

Further details on Managing readings lists will be published on 4 July 2018.  If you would like more information, please contact Readings Online.

Student view

Student views allows you to preview the reading as a student will view.  Click on Student in the task bar to open student view.

Removal of the unit library

The unit library was used to remove or delete readings either not required for the upcoming teaching period or no longer required at all.  Readings in the unit library could be moved back to the main reading list if required later.   The new hide feature performs the same function and the unit library feature has been removed.

Existing unit libraries will be migrated by Readings Online as part of the upgrade. The unit library will appear as a group in your reading list.  Readings can then be included in a new reading list if required for teaching.

• Readings Online: Staff User Guide
• Harvard Business Publishing: Staff User Guide
• Research Essentials