Information for Instructors

• What is Course Reserves?
• How do I use Course Reserves?
• What kind of material can I put on reserve?
• What are the loan periods for reserve materials?
• How do I send you my personal material for reserves?
• What's the best way to put library books on reserve?
• Is access to electronic materials restricted to students in the course?
• How do I add a link in LEARN to my course reserves list?
• What happens at the end of the term?
• Are usage statistics available?

What is Course Reserves?

Course Reserves is a service that works with instructors to make course readings available to students in either paper or electronic formats. Reserves include traditional materials like assignment solutions, books, journal articles, and lecture notes, but also digitized materials such as ebooks, ejournal articles, and scanned excerpts from print publications.*

You can now create and manage your course reserve lists online using Course Reserves. Highlights of the new interface are featured here.

*Provided the Library obtains copyright permission.

How do I use Course Reserves?

• Log in to Course Reserves using your WatIAM username and password. You should be taken to the Instructor Main Menu.
• If you wish, you can designate a full proxy user to create and manage reserve lists on your behalf.
• To create a new course reserve list, click the “Create a New Course” option under Instructor Tools on the side menu.
• Current courses display in the Main Menu. Once a course is created, you can designate a course TA to add reserve items to the course.
• Subscribe to course email notification and be informed when new items become available on reserve.
• To add reserves, open a course from the list of current courses and select the “Add Reserve Items” option under Instructor Course Tools from the side menu. If you have previously taught the course, you have the option to import items from a previous course reserve list.

What kind of material can I put on reserve?

Library Reserves provides access to:

• personal materials of instructors, for which they own the copyright (e.g., assignment questions/solutions)
• original print books, textbooks, DVDs, CDs, etc.
• links to materials within our licensed electronic resources, such as our electronic journal subscriptions
• links to scanned material for which we have purchased a transactional license
• links to digital materials for which permission has been granted

Please allow 6-8 weeks for processing of requests that require transactional licensing or permission.

PLEASE NOTE:

• there will be no Courseware packages placed on Reserve in UW libraries
• there will be no print copies of journal articles or book chapters/excerpts placed on Reserve in UW libraries

What are the loan periods for reserve materials?

• Loan Periods for paper material are:
  1 HOUR
  3 HOURS
  1 DAY - due by desk closing the following day
  3 DAYS - due by desk closing on the fourth day
• Material with 1 DAY or 3 DAY loans may be placed on hold by students up to one week before the item is desired. These holds must be placed in person at the Circulation/Reserves desks.

How do I send you my personal material for reserves?

Once you have submitted a reserve request you can mail your personal material to us or bring it the Circulation Desk of the appropriate library. Please include a note citing Course and Instructor information.

What's the best way to put library books on reserve?

One option is to fill out the form in the Course Reserves system for hardcopy books.

Alternatively, there is a 'Course Reserves Request' form available in Primo and in TRELLIS, which you may find more convenient for library books. The form is available from the same dropdown list that you use for placing Holds and Recalls. We apologize for the difficulty in reading the Instructions part of the form - we are still working on formatting issues within Primo.

Is access to electronic materials restricted to students in the course?

Yes, access is restricted by course. When students login they are able to see only the courses for which they are registered.

How do I add a link in LEARN to my course reserves list?

To add a link in LEARN to your Course Reserves list, contact Jan Willwerth at 519-888-4567 ext. 32376 or jan@uwaterloo.ca.

What happens at the end of the term?

If you want to use Reserves for succeeding terms please let us know as soon as possible. Unless otherwise specified, material will be removed from Reserves after the final exam is written for your course. The date of the final exam will be determined by the Final Exam Timetable as published by the Registrar's Office. Please be sure to let staff know if a deferred exam has been set.

Expired course reserve lists are retained and can be cloned to another term. Individual items can also be imported in future terms if you want to re-use selected material from one or more previous lists. Please note: permissions will need to be renewed for cloned and imported items that originally required copyright clearance.

To clone a course select the course that you want to put on reserves again. If the course is not being offered in the current term you will find it under “Previous Courses” in the Instructor Tools section on the left menu.

Once you have selected the course, you can use the “Clone Course” command to copy it forward to a term in the future. Select the term you want and then go to the bottom of the page and click on “Clone Course.”

Are usage statistics available?

Usage statistics are recorded in Course Reserves. From the Main Menu, open a course from the list of Current Courses. Click on the “Reserves Items Usage” option under Instructor Course Tools from the side menu. For eReserves, item usage is counted when a student clicks the "View this item" button on the item details page.

Historical statistics for eReserves from Fall 2005 to Winter 2009 are available at http://www.ereserves.uwaterloo.ca/stats.cfm

Course Reserves- Features

• Create and manage course reserve lists for the current term. View lists from previous and upcoming terms.
• Designate a Proxy User. A Course TA can add reserves to a course on your behalf; a Full Proxy can create new course reserve lists for you as well as add new items to all your existing reserve lists.
• Track the status of reserve requests.
• Subscribe to email notification to be updated when new items become available on reserve for your course.
• Assign tags to individual reserve items.
• Switch to Student Mode to view your course reserves as students see them.
• Get usage statistics for electronic and paper reserves.
• Clone a course reserve list for a future term or import items from previous courses.