Managing your Reading List
How to ...
You can follow the written guide below. Alternatively, there is a 4 minute video guide.
Introducing sections and adding paragraphs to your list
It is good practice to divide your reading list into Sections and Paragraphs. This makes it easier for students to engage with the resources, plan their work and follow your guidance.
You can structure your list in various ways, depending on the size of your list or nature of the module.
Within an Empty list, start by adding a section from the menu highlighted.
From within a list that is already containing resources, hover the mouse curser in between references and the same options will appear.
Sections help break up your reading list into meaningful content, which students can easily navigate to using the “Table of Contents” at the top of your list. Resources can be added directly into sections.
You can name (Title field) each section and add a brief Description, e.g. to introduce the week's topic. Resources can be added directly into a section.
Sections can have sub-sections, just click "Add section" within an existing section. This allows for a combination of structures so that weekly readings can also have additional subsections for topics.
Paragraphs can be added to individual sections to give additional information on a topic. You can embed links and format the text within a paragraph. This gives you the option of bold, italicised and bullet point formatting”.
Adding notes for students or library
To give further guidance or include additional information about a resource, you can add a note for your students. This Student notes field will be displayed beneath each reference. Here you can refer to certain chapters within a book or outline the context of the resource. These annotations help your students to engage with their resources.
Add a Library note accessing the same menu. Here you can add specific purchase recommendations. This note is not visible to students, but will be picked up by library staff when your list is sent to review
You access, add and edit student and library notes via the 3 vertical dot menu to the right of the resource.
Changing the importance of a text
Please select the importance of each text from the two options "Essential" or "Additional" reading.
This indication is not just an important guideline for your students, but also determines the number of copies/licenses the library will purchase, or hold, according to the Library’s Collections policy.
You can select the importance of each text with the highlighted drop-down menu.
Moving things around and deleting items
If you want to move individual items around, you can do that either via the up and down arrow symbol next to the VIEW button on the left of each reference and drag the item where needed, or via the cut and paste options under the 3 vertical dot menu. If your list is long (beyond the view of the screen) the “cut and paste option” is the most effective way of carrying out this function.
You can also move complete sections using the cut and paste option within the 3 dot menu.
From here you are also able to delete references or sections. Please be aware that deleting a section, also deletes everything within this section!
When creating or editing a list, changes cannot be viewed by your students until you have published the list. To publish a list, select "Publish" from the list editing screen.
Once published, you can continue to edit your list - any changes remain in a draft format (not viewable by your students) until the list is published again. If you, or your colleague, attempt to make changes to an earlier version of the list a note will be flagged (latest changes are not published) as per the screenshot below.
Once you have made your changes and published your list, we recommend you submit your list for Review; particularly if you’ve added new resources. The Reading List Team will check your list to ensure the library has sufficient copies/licenses for your module. They will also check all links to ensure they are working. You can find more information on ordering library resources for teaching within our guide “Adding resources to your Reading List and ordering books”.
We hope you found our support page and guides helpful. If you require additional support, “contact the Reading List Team” , email libenqs@soton.ac.uk.