University of Glasgow - MyGlasgow - Academic Policy & Governance - Policy, Strategy and Regulations - Student Support - Accessible & Inclusive Learning Policy - AILP Policy

Accessible & Inclusive Learning Policy

Appendix E: The Reading Lists @ Glasgow service and procurement of material for reading lists

Reading Lists @ Glasgow is the University’s online reading list service. Using a cloud-based system, Talis Aspire, the service ensures required teaching resources are accessible and available to students.

The Reading Lists @ Glasgow team liaise closely with academic staff to ensure timely sourcing of material and is happy to consult further to support the delivery of the Accessible & Inclusive Learning Policy.

Main features of the service include:

Academics can create, manage and update course lists online, or get the support of the Reading Lists @ Glasgow team to create lists on their behalf.
Online reading lists can be added as resources to course Moodles.
The online system is accessible 24/7 and can be accessed on mobile devices. It meetsWeb Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG) at Level AA and is compatible with screen readers.
Online lists provide easy access to electronic resources as well as information, live availability and location of physical stock in the Library.
Reading importance levels can be set for texts to eliminate doubt amongst students as to which texts are essential and which are optional. See the section below Reading list: reading expectations and terminology for more information on reading lists expectations and terminology.
E-books, when available for institutional purchase, are purchased in line with the Library’s Course Materials Collection Policy. It should be noted that institutional e-book purchase is not always possible due to licensing reasons, e.g. some core textbooks are only licensed on an individual basis. Essential chapters can be highlighted, and academics can request digitisation of book chapters (subject to copyright licensing restrictions) using the Note to Library field or by email.
The Request Review feature within the system ensures The Reading Lists @ Glasgow service will then look to obtain in electronic formats any essential texts not already available. This will apply to texts marked as Essential and Suggested for Student Purchase. Print will be purchased for the High Demand Collection, where no suitable electronic version is available.
Published lists can be set to be viewed by all via the Web or accessible only to University of Glasgow staff and students via GUID.
Online reading lists can be set with Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Licences (CC-BY).

To support academics the Reading Lists @ Glasgow team can offer training on online list creation. Academics can opt for the Reading Lists @ Glasgow team to create the online list on their behalf.

Reading lists and decisions on core texts need to be communicated to the Library as early as possible for sufficient time to process all requests. Some textbook requests can take several weeks due to complex negotiations on price and obtaining files.

Additionally, to support the aims of the Accessible & Inclusive Learning Policy in ensuring course materials are made available to students with disabilities, reading lists should be communicated to the Reading Lists @ Glasgow service by the end of July for Semester 1 and the end of November for Semester 2. Lists received after the deadline will be processed as soon as possible but access to course materials cannot be guaranteed for the course start date. and thus, the University’s accessible and inclusive offer for students may be significantly compromised.’

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Open Book Exams

Academics should advise the Reading Lists @ Glasgow service in advance when an e-book is required for an open book examination. Not all electronic books have unlimited access and further models may need to be investigated to support use in open book exams.

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Support for developing reading lists

College Librarians can advise on the wide range of electronic, physical and multimedia resources available for students when developing and creating reading lists.

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Support service for students’ course materials requirements under the Equality Act (2010)

The Business Relationship Management team (Information Services) work with Student Disability Service to support disabled students when using the Library. For print disabled readers, publishers are contacted to obtain, where possible, an electronic file for any essential texts where the Library does not have an accessible electronic copy. Texts can be then transposed into a suitably accessible alternative format for the student.

https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/students/disabledstudents/

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Reading list: reading expectations and terminology

Standard terminology on reading lists is useful to eliminate doubt amongst students as to which texts are essential and which are optional. As students move into postgraduate study there may be more emphasis on autonomous learning. Thus students may be encouraged to supplement essential reading, by finding their own materials. The following is a guide to best practice, to build on the standard set for undergraduate courses.

Where reading materials are essential, including those suggested for purchase, the standard language used in the undergraduate space should be used to avoid confusion.
Students should be given written and oral guides at the start of each course to help them make a decision about how much reading they should do to help them navigate lists of optional materials.
Students should be informed whether they should be using the optional materials to supplement their learning each week, or whether these materials are listed as an aid if the student chooses to complete an assignment on that topic.
Students on post-graduate taught and research courses may be encouraged to identify optional reading of their own where it meets the learning and teaching outcomes, but relates more to their particular field of interest. Guidance should be provided in writing at the start of each course.

To help guide students the online reading list system (Reading Lists @ Glasgow service) has a menu of standard terms – importance levels.

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Online reading lists importance levels and related services

The online reading list service, Reading Lists @ Glasgow (RL@G), allows academics to select an Importance level for each item on a list (or leave blank). These importance levels are then used by the Library to make course materials available. The importance levels are:

Suggested for Student Purchase
Essential
Recommended
Further

The RL@G service manages these importance levels in the following ways:-

Suggested for Student Purchase and Essential: The Reading Lists @ Glasgow service will look to obtain in electronic formats any texts not already available. Print will be purchased for the High Demand Collection, where no suitable electronic version is available.
Recommended monographs: Should be selected from already available Library resources or free online resources. No recommended books are purchased in line with current Course Materials Policy.
Further monographs: Should be selected from already available Library resources or free online resources. No further books are purchased in line with current Course Materials Policy.
If the importance level is left blank, it is treated as a Further item.

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