Electronic Reserve
Electronic reserve service (known as eReserve) allows instructors to make course readings and other materials available to students online.
eReserve is available to support all University academic programs. If you are interested in placing course materials on electronic reserve or have any questions, please email:
Primary Contact: Wilson Reserve
For Bio-Med: Bio-Medical Library Reserve
For Vet-med: Veterinary Medical Library Reserve
What to Know about Electronic Reserve
1) Electronic reserve may be used for a wide variety of materials including:
- Course syllabi
- Lecture notes and presentations
- Practice exams and exercises
- Journal articles
- Book chapters
- Electronic files -- PowerPoint slides, spreadsheets, etc.
When licensed resources are linked inside eReserve course pages, instructors no longer need to include them in traditional course packs, which can require additional royalty payments.
2) eReserve requests are generally processed within 24 hours except during periods of unusually high activity prior to and early in the semester. In these cases, eReserve staff use the assignment due date over submission date to prioritize the workflow queue for posting.
3) Instructors are asked to complete an eReserve Submission Form or provide a course syllabus that includes complete citations of the material to be used and the date by which students will need them to complete the assignment. In the event of a processing backlog, the due date for the assignment will help ensure that materials are ready when students need them.
4) Using the eReserve Submission Form or a course syllabus, library staff will determine which materials are available via licensed online resources and if the license permits course reserve use. If a reading is available through a licensed online resource that allows the use of its content in course reserves, eReserve staff create persistent links to the articles rather than post electronic files to the class site.
For materials that cannot be linked:
- Submit clean single-sided photocopies of the materials for scanning into PDF format (articles, tests/exams, chapters, etc). Clean refers to the absence of black bars, lines, and marks on the page. (NOTE: the cleaner the copy, the smaller the file size for downloading.).
OR
- Submit PDF files of scanned materials or other types of electronic files (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, html documents, etc.) if you are sure that your students have the appropriate software or viewers to use those file types. To keep file size small, files in PDF format should be scanned at no more than 300dpi and in black and white. Files may be submitted through email, or delivered on a flash drive, DVD, or CD.
5) For all submitted materials, include a copy of the Notice of Copyright associated with the copied document (in accordance with the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act). In books, the Notice is typically found on the verso of the title page. For articles, the Notice may be found on the article's title page or printed near the journal issue's table of contents. Typically, the Notice of Copyright will appear something like this:
- © 2004 by The Modern Language Association of America
6) Most print-format documents will be scanned and converted into a PDF file. We use image software scanning which gives us the best quality document but also makes the file size larger. To minimize downloading time and failures, large documents are divided into smaller segments. The segments will appear as multiple files after clicking on the course reading. Each file will need to be opened separately.
7) Copyright, Licenses, and Permissions
Conditions of Use
Materials may be copied and made available for course reserves under four common conditions:
- in the public domain; or
- used with permission from the copyright holder; or
- used under the provisions of a contract or license agreement , noting that agreements may differ from, and often take precedence over, what is allowed under copyright law; or
- used under the provision of Fair Use (U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Section 107), as outlined in the Classroom Guidelines or as determined using a case-by-case four-factor analysis.
Instructor Responsibilities Relating to Fair Use
When using copyrighted works for course reserves under the provisions of Fair Use (Section 107), the following instructor responsibilities apply:
- All materials submitted by instructors must support course-related teaching, scholarship, or research.
- Instructors submitting materials are responsible for evaluating, on a case-by-case basis, whether the use of a copyrighted work requires permission or qualifies as fair use. When permissions are needed, instructors or their departments are expected to make any required arrangements for permissions. University Libraries will provide consultation and assistance to instructors in evaluating the qualification of any specific use as a fair use.
- Whenever copying original materials is involved, whether the copies are made by instructors or by the library, only the amount needed to accomplish the specific educational purpose should be copied. In consultation with library staff, instructors will determine any limits on the amount of material to be used.
- Access to materials on course reserves must be limited to students currently enrolled and their instructors.
Applications of fair use are predicated on the Libraries' General Principles of Fair Use in Education, and require access controls that restrict access to reserve materials to only registered students and their instructors of that course.
For more details, see the University Libraries' Copyright Standards for Course Reserves.
8) Access to course materials will require a course level password supplied by the Libraries staff. The instructor will be responsible for sharing the password with students. It should only be shared with students registered for the specific class.
Password protection creates a secure environment for access to copyrighted works that allows University Libraries to make materials available to students under the provisions of fair use. Limiting access to students registered in a specific class helps assure that materials are used only for educational purposes, and minimizes any impact on the market for the original work. This restriction is essential to a good faith assertion of fair use in electronic reserves service.
9) Instructors can provide students with the URL to the E-Reserve system home page or with a precise URL that connects directly to a specific course log in page.
10) Users will need the following hardware/software:
- Hardware:
- PC, Pentium minimum, or comparable Apple
- Internet access
Software:
11) Students may direct questions they have about electronic reserve, including those related to hardware and software, and navigating the system to: askinfo@tc.umn.edu. An Electronic Reserve FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page is also available for students.