“I think Electronic Reserves are great! They have
reduced the amount of instruction I have to give about routine matters.
They have also reduced the number of handouts I need to duplicate for
my students” Tom Gwaltney, Department of Teacher Education.
During the spring of 2000, the Halle purchased an electronic reserve
system from Docutek Information Systems, Inc., and after testing the
system during the spring/summer semesters; we began to offer the system
campus wide to our faculty in fall, 2000. As of today we have 352 faculty
accounts, 259 currrent courses and 8244 documents online. During Spring/Summer
2005 we had over 28,000 page hits. In April we upgraded the server and
the electronic reserve system. The new system offers the faculty many
enhancements, including folders in folders, the ability to attach many
documents and different types of documents to the title level and a direct
link to other online course software.
We have four training sessions scheduled for new faculty orientation
and 10 training sessions
scheduled for the first two weeks of classes.
Faculty can easily create their own course pages and add materials on
their own after a short 45-60 minute workshop during which an account
is set up. Faculty can create course pages and then add their materials
by uploading from a pc, disc or cd or by faxing the material into the
electronic reserve server, creating a pdf document, which is located
in the Halle. We have made a fax machine available for electronic course
reserve faxing in the Welcome Center of the library for anyone who doesn’t
have access to a machine. Documents can
be added, removed and course information changed at the faculty’s
discretion whenever needed, 24/7. Materials may be in Word, PowerPoint,
Excel, Corel Word Perfect, or adobe PDF format. Faculty may also list
websites, with active links, add free text documents and make reference
to materials in the Halle reserve collection on their course reserve
pages. Copyright management tools are also available including a direct
link to the Copyright Clearance Center and the generation of permission
request letters. Although everything is “electronic”, copyright
fair use guidelines must still be followed.
Students access their course reserve materials by department or faculty
name and enter a password given to them by the faculty member. If a student
doesn’t have the necessary program on their computer to read the
material they have access to free programs right on the course page to
download. Students can also email the faculty member from the course
page. Students love the ability to read their course materials from home,
office or wherever they happen to be, whenever they want, and also be
able to print the materials if needed.
Ereserve workshops are announced on EMU Today. We can also provide departmental
workshops and one on one appointments can also be arranged. For general
information regarding electronic reserves please contact Rita Bullard,
7-0020 x2141, Halle Library. The Continuing Education department provides
electronic reserve assistance for faculty through Andy Holmes, 7-9043.
Judy Block, 7-0020 x2198, Halle Library, provides assistance to both
faculty and students taking classes through continuing education.
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