The spring 2019 textbook deadline is coming up this month! Here are five quick things to think about as you select your course readings.
Average Reading Time: 2 minutes
- Leverage Library e-books, a resource your students already pay for in their tuition.
With more than 700,000 e-books available from the UD Library, Museums and Press, there’s a good chance you’ll find at least one to enhance your course materials.
Even better, most of these e-books have unlimited users with no limits on printing, saving or downloading. In technical terms, that means these e-books are digital rights management-free (DRM-free). But e-books that are not DRM-free, including many on the popular ProQuest Ebook Central and EBSCOhost eBooks platforms, can also be used as course material.
Collaborate with your subject liaison librarian to come up with the best e-book option for your course. Together, you’ll take into account how many students are in the class, if the e-book would be a primary or supplemental text, and whether the e-book would be used regularly during the course.
Whether you need help finding e-books for a class or you’ve already found one in the Library’s catalog, your subject liaison librarian can help you take the next step. What are you waiting for? Start searching the catalog for e-books now!
- Go Open! Explore high-quality, peer-reviewed textbooks that are licensed for you to use for free.
If you’re concerned about the cost of higher education (and who isn’t!?), consider a textbook option that doesn’t rely upon subscriptions or present a cost burden to your students. Browse the Open Textbook Library to find peer-reviewed textbooks produced by universities and nonprofits, read reviews of the texts by faculty, and download your copy right away.
Even if you are using a commercial textbook, offering an open textbook as a supplementary resource may help your students keep up with course concepts even if they choose to delay or forego purchasing an expensive required text.
An added bonus: Open textbooks, such as those produced by OpenStax, are instantly compatible with screen readers, making them accessible for all students on the first day of class.
- Take advantage of the Library’s New York Times student access program to engage students with current events.
While students may be used to getting the news in tweets and The Skimm, encourage them to take a deeper dive into current events with free access to the full New York Times website through the Library. Rather than providing students with links to articles or asking them to pay to subscribe, consider requiring them to sign up for the New York Times with an individual account!
- Stop stressing over copyright! Make your readings available through the Course Reserve service, and let the Library worry about those permissions.
Use the Library’s Course Reserve service to provide your students with access to assigned print readings. You can set aside Library books, personal copies of books, articles, chapters and more.
The Library may also be able to make assigned readings available electronically. Library staff can scan print copies and post PDFs online through the Library’s catalog, or link to readings in the Library’s e-journals or e-books.
- Go with the flow! Consider streaming content in lieu of (or in addition to) readings.
Explore e-videos your students can stream from the comfort of their dorm rooms or their mobile devices. The Library licenses more than 100,000 e-videos that cover a wide variety of disciplines and topics, including research methods, media analysis, theater greats and everything in between.
You can find most of these video resources via the Library’s catalog. You can also explore the databases themselves to make use of tools that enable you and your students to make clips and create playlists—all of which can be shared via email or embedded into Canvas.
You can also explore freely available media collections via archives, television stations and universities around the world. Dive into some of our favorites via the Media LibGuide—browse the subject-based tabs to discover these gems.
And don’t forget the Library’s physical media collection at Film & Video, which provides a reliable, high-quality viewing experience, especially in a classroom setting.
