Wageningen University Course Libraries

What are Course Libraries?

In the Virtual Learning Environment of Wageningen University, Course Libraries are tailored library environments linked to specific Wageningen University courses. A Course Library consists of links to bibliographies, databases, web sites, and electronic and hardcopy books, journals and journal articles relevant to the course to which it is linked.

Lecturers can compile Course Libraries from all sources available through the Wageningen Digital Library. They can then provide a link to a read-only version of the Course Library for use by students.

The links that are included in a course library will be constantly maintained and updated by Wageningen UR Library. Sources which are no longer available (e.g. web sites that cease to exist) will automatically be removed from the Course Library.

Setting up a Course Library

EDUlinks web part As soon as you are registered as lecturer for a course in the Study Guide, you will have access to the specific page for this course in EduWeb. The Course Library is one of the items on the configuration site of this page. You can get to this page by clicking its link in the EDUlinks web part. In the configuration site you can request the creation of a Course Library for this course. Once a course library is created, you can also edit it from here.

Once a Course Library has been created, you can also access it through the Course Library icon icon in the 'My classes' web part in EduWeb.

When creating or editing a Course Library, you are automatically logged in to the Wageningen Digital Library environment. The first thing you will want to do after creating a Course Library is adding items to it. You can select items from several points in the Wageningen Digital Library.

Adding items from the Databases A-Z list

Once logged in to the Digital Library, you can reach the Databases A-Z list by clicking "Search" in the left menu, and then Databases A-Z link under Frequently used resources. By clicking on the Add to shortcuts icon icon you can add an item to your Course Library.

Adding (full text) books, websites and other sources from the Library Catalogue

Any item from the Wageningen UR Library Catalogue can be added to your Course Library by clicking on the SFX button button visible in each record in the Catalogue.

The SFX menu is divided into 3 sections, Basic, Additional and Help. In the 'Additional' section of the SFX-menu, click on the option "Add this publication to personal shortcuts in My Library"

Note If you want to use a book in your course (e.g. for recommendend reading) and the Library doesn't have it, you can always recommend it for purchase.

Adding items from other databases

In the same way as in the Catalogue, you can add books and articles from all databases in the Wageningen Digital Library where SFX has already been introduced. Click on the SFX button button and then on the menu option "Add this publication to personal shortcuts in My Library" under 'Additional'

Adding your own links

Apart from the sources mentioned above, you can add your own links to the Course Library. However, they will not be guaranteed by the Library.

A small form is provided for this purpose, where you can fill in the URL, the title of the resource to be shown in the Course Library and the type of resource.

Adding links to journal articles

There are several ways to add a link to a journal article:

  1. From a bibliographic database or a publisher's site such as Swetswise by looking up the article and clicking the SFX-button in the bibliographic record.
  2. From the electronic journal itself - many electronic journals are SFX-enabled, you can look them up in our list of electronic journals
    (NB. Use the SFX-button with the specific article, not the SFX-button in the list of journals to make the link).
  3. Adding it as your own link (see above). If an article has a DOI (if so, this will be printed on the first page of the article) you can construct a link by adding the suffix http://dx.doi.org/.
    Example: if the DOI is 10.1016/j.molbiopara.2003.08.017 the URL should be http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.molbiopara.2003.08.017
    DOI links will never change.

Display the Course Library

Once logged in to the Digital Library, you can view the course library by clicking on "My Library" in the left menu and then on the link under "My resources".

Resources will be ordered by type.

By clicking on the Delete you can remove an item from the list. Wageningen UR Library will regularly check all information sources for broken links. Sources which are no longer available (e.g. web sites that cease to exist) will automatically be removed from the Course Library.

Providing a link to the Course Library

In the Virtual Learning Environment of a course (in Blackboard, Quickplace or other web site) you can provide a link to the read only version of the Course Library meant for students.

The URL for the link is

http://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/courselib?user=vak.XXXX

where XXXX represents the course's code.

Example: http://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/courselib?user=vak.ECS52901 is the Course Library for ECS-52901 Information Literacy.

To add a link in the left margin of a Blackboard educlass:

For students, the Course Library is read-only, they can not add or remove resources. A Course Library is accessible to anyone who follows a link to it. Access to the information sources listed, however, may be restricted to staff and students of Wageningen UR. This is always indicated, either with a this resource can only be accessed from a computer in one of the Wageningen UR buildings or by Wageningen UR users who are logged in in My Library, or with text. Off-campus users can gain access to these sources by logging in to the 'My Library' environment with their Wageningen UR e-mail address

Deleting a Course Library

Presently, you can not completely delete a course library yourself. If you want the Library to delete a course library for you, you can send an e-mail to our Service Desk. The Library will only delete a Course Library upon request of the Lecturer who has created it.

Problems

Please warn our Service Desk in case

mail icon Wageningen Digital Library, 9 January, 2007