Do It Yourself

It is possible for academic staff to place resources on the LMS without using the Readings Online services, but this is not encouraged.

Library database links

Journal articles should not be downloaded from the University's online databases then upload to the LMS as this may breach the license agreement of that database. Instead links to journal articles can be made with Open URL Generator. Full details are available at: http://search.lib.unimelb.edu.au/help/openurlgen.html

Creating files to go on the LMS

Items made available via the LMS, but not using Readings Online must have the appropriate copyright notice attached and need to be registered with the copyright office under the Electronic Use Scheme.

There are limits to what can be communicate electronically under PartVB of the copyright act, for example, one chapter or 10% of a book is allowed. Exceptions may apply and for full details visit the Copyright Office: http://www.unimelb.edu.au/copyright/

Copyright notice for electronic communication of copyright images or text is available from: http://www.unimelb.edu.au/copyright/notices/

Register items with the Electronic Use Scheme here: http://www.unimelb.edu.au/copyright/register/index.html

Information on creating external links, else putting files into the Content Collection of the LMS and then making them available to students is available from the LMS guides page at: http://www.lms.unimelb.edu.au/staff/guides/

File format

The LMS does not have restrictions on the types of files that may be uploaded, however consider what software your students will need in order to read the files you place there.

PDF files are very suitable as a free Acrobat (PDF) Reader is available from www.adobe.com Text documents, presentations, images, spreadsheets and a combination of these may be created as PDF files.

The full version of Adobe Acrobat is used for creating PDF files and information on purchasing a licence is available from IT Procurement and Licensing.

Scanning

Unless the item to be communicated is your own work you will probably need to scan it.

Keep file small when ever possible. If an attachment is going to be larger than 2Mb in size, the students may have difficulty getting access over a slow network connection.

Recommended scanning settings that give reasonable quality while keeping file sizes down include:

Black and white text: 300dpi
Greyscale images: 200dpi
Colour images: 100dpi

Text items should have the Acrobat Professional command "Recognise text using OCR" used on them as this makes the document more useable by people with sight disabilities. It also results in a searchable PDF file - very handy for all users.