Staff Handbook: 3.6 Learning Resources

Approved: 27 November 2002
Factual updates 16 September 2008
(Significant changes since approval will be in red.)

The purpose of this section of the Staff Handbook is to serve as an aide-memoire and a pointer to further information, rather than provide a detailed list of learning resources available, since these can change rapidly.

Contents

1. Teaching Rooms

To book rooms within the School, contact the School Office. The School has only a few small-group teaching rooms. Most rooms required for teaching will have been allocated centrally. Basically the School's timetabling officer (currently the Head of Academic Programmes) asks university room allocations (part of Academic Services) for rooms as part of the timetabling process. Module lecturers should not deal directly with university room allocations, but should always go through the School Office.

Module providers should be aware of two issues relating to teaching rooms:

  • The university has few lecture rooms holding 150+ students, which puts severe constraints on timetabling. It is very difficult to alter times or locations when large groups are involved.
  • Lectures should take place from on the hour to 10 mins to the hour. However, students are often required to move quite large distances between succeeding lectures, so tolerance should be exercised in such cases.

Resources in Teaching Rooms

University teaching rooms are maintained by the Learning Resources Accommodation Team (LRAT). Information about the resources available in teaching rooms is available on the web -- there will always be an up-to-date link on the Information for Staff web page. Complaints about teaching rooms should be sent to LRAT. However, it is useful if such complaints are copied to Teaching Committee (e-mail teaching-comm) so that it can attempt to respond to any regular problems.

The School can make portable computers and portable electronic projectors available to members of staff where the appropriate equipment is not already provided in teaching rooms or is unsuitable. Contact the Support Office.

You are strongly advised to check and test all essential equipment well before a lecture and go prepared to use alternative technology, where this is possible. (For example, take overhead projector slides as an alternative to a PowerPoint presentation.)

2. Computing Facilities

Central Computing Facilities

Central computing facilities are maintained by IT Services. Although these are available to Computer Science students, single honours students generally have little need to make use of them. However, joint honours students are likely to use these facilities regularly via their other discipline and may at times be more familiar with them than with School facilities.

School Computing Facilities

Facilities within the School are described on the SupportWeb web site. Contact the Support Team or the Director of Computing Facilities for further information. Facilities within the School are managed via the Computing Facilities Committee.

The School makes its laboratories available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, except when the university is closed.

3. Library Provision

Central Library

Central library services are managed by Library Services. In addition to the obvious provision of book borrowing, services available include:

  • Reading Lists
  • Printed Course Material
  • Electronic Key Texts
  • General reference resources
  • Exam papers database

It is particularly important that module providers keep the University Library informed of reading lists. Information on how to do this is given on the appropriate Library Services web page.

School Library

The School Library is an independent departmental reference library which supplements the Main Library computing stock and also holds items unique to the School. Staff have access at all times by swipe-card. They may borrow items, other than reference items, at the issue desk. Items should not be removed out of office hours without being officially issued. Recommendations for general additions to stock should be made initially to the Library Officer, while course reading lists should be given to the Librarian.

Other services for staff include photocopying, both self-service by pin number, and bulk copying by the librarian. Photocopying request forms should be placed in the Standard Clerical Tasks tray in Reception at least 2 working days before the copying is required. Prepaid forms for inter-library loans are available, as are cards for photocopying in the Main Library. Self-service ring binding is also available.

See also the section on copyright below.

4. Learning Development Unit

The university has a Learning Development Unit, part of Academic Services. It makes available a wide range of support and facilities, including resources for the development of teaching materials.

5. Teaching Support Material

Module Lecturers are responsible for making appropriate teaching support material available to students. This may include:

  • Textbook recommendations. These must appear in the Syllabus web page. Reading lists must also be made available to the Central Library and the School Library (see above). The School currently provides a small number of essential textbooks to students on the conversion MSc.
  • Online material. The Module Description and Syllabus web pages are described in 3.2.2 Module Quality Assurance Procedures. Any web site for a module should be referenced in the Links section of the Syllabus web page. It may be appropriate to provide quite extensive online support; e.g. originals of handouts, overhead slides or presentations, examples, source code, exercises, solutions or interactive tests.
  • Written material given out in lectures. Many lecturers give out handouts or printouts of slides or presentations in lectures. Lecturers should use the well-organized system for spares of such material to be made available via the School Library -- contact the School Librarian.
  • Written material in the form of booklets. Some lecturers collect handouts, etc. together in the form of a booklet which is made available to students via the School Library at the start of the module.

6. Copyright

The following is a very brief guide to a complex subject. Further information should be sought from the School Librarian and from the Library Services (LS) copyright web page, where the "Frequently asked Copyright questions" sub-page is particularly useful. Full guidance on what is permitted under the University's current agreements with the Copyright Licensing Agency will be found here. Another useful guide is the UCU's booklet, "Your guide to intellectual property rights", which can be ordered through the UCU website.

If you do need to pay a copyright fee for multiple copies of teaching materials that are outside the University's copyright agreements, you should clear this with the Head of Academic Programmes, so that it can be paid for by the Teaching Budget.

For research, private study, criticism or review there is a "fair dealing" clause that permits copying of "insubstantial" parts of a whole work. See the examples on the LS copyright page. Note that it is not permitted to sidestep the restrictions on copying for a class of students by instructing the students to copy a particular item for themselves.

For class teaching it is necessary to follow the rules agreed by the University with the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), which are clearly set out on their website. These include a provision to allow enlarged copies to be made for partially sighted people. There is a list of excluded items, for which specific permission to copy may have to be sought. This includes printed music and lyrics, maps (there is a separate agreement with the Ordnance Survey), charts and books of tables, and newspapers, for which the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) issues a separate licence.

Illustrations and photographs have separate copyright from the text in which they may be embedded. Note that the NLA licence does not include photographs in newspapers, for which the rights have to be sought specifically. The CLA agreement does cover illustrations and photographs within the works that it covers. You can make slides and transparencies from CLA-agreement material but you are not allowed to make them available in a collection.

Scanning-in of copyright material is covered by the same provisions as photocopying. If the item is one for which you have to seek specific permission, separate permission has to be obtained for making "hardcopy" photocopies and for disseminating an electronic version (e.g. on the Intranet or as a WebCT item). Note that the licence from the CLA now covers scanning of much but not all of the material that can be photocopied under the agreement. Again, see the LS copyright pages for full details of the extensive terms and conditions associated with scanning.

You can record videos of most radio and TV programmes and replay them "for educational purposes". This is covered by a licence granted by the Education Recording Agency, except for Open University and Open College programmes, which are covered by a separate licence. Details of these licences can also be obtained from the LS copyright pages.

When a book chapter, journal article or other small item that can be considered as "fair dealing" is essential reading for a course, you can make copies for the entire class providing the source material and the amount to be copied is covered by the CLA licence. Otherwise, you need copyright clearance from the rights holder to make copies for the entire class. The originals (not copies) of items required as "background reading" can be placed in the Short Loan collection of the University Library if the Library possesses them and also in the School Library. For articles from journals to which IS does not subscribe, Information Services can obtain a copyright-cleared copy from the British Library, but will charge the School for this service.

Note that electronic journals providde through Library Services are subject to Terms and Conditions of use which usually preclude the making of multiple copies. However, they vary from supplier to supplier, so they need to be checked on a case-by-case basis before articles are downloaded, etc.

Personal Copyright and Patents

This handbook is not an appropriate place to discuss this subject in detail. Academic staff who are members can seek advice from the AUT as the officially recognized negotiating body. Universities vary in their attitude to the copyright of materials created in the course of employment, although by default copyright belongs to the employer when something is created in the course of employment using resources the employer has provided.

A clause in the conditions of employment of academic staff covers the rights of staff and the University to the exploitation of inventions. Computer programs are covered by the Copyright (Computer Programs) Regulations 1992 (SI no. 3233).

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