These guidelines have been created to help you and your students to get the most benefit from your reading lists on Talis Aspire.
Students find online reading lists helpful for their learning. When we asked them what made a ‘good’ reading list, here are some of their comments:
"I find it useful when my reading list is concise and clear – often there are specific chapters which are recommended."
"I particularly like the subheadings/annotations of ‘essential’, ‘further reading’ and ‘recommended’ as they help me plan which books I will read and when."
"I like it when there are questions to answer when reading, as this helps me focus on what I'm reading."
"Inter-connectivity between books; i.e. it's nice to have book that complement and contrast others on the list. This really helps you understand the nuances of any given period better."
"I believe it is also important that a reading list is manageable. This would perhaps mean that the resources vary in length. For example, a good reading list would include short introductory works, as well as more comprehensive works."
To summarise, in order to be most useful for students, reading lists should:
Provide clear structure – ideally by week / term / topic to enable students to plan ahead with their studies
see our new templates which you can copy from (you must be logged in to Talis to view)
Indicate clearly which readings are essential and which are further or background, to enable them to prioritise their readings effectively
Provide essential seminar readings which are available electronically where possible (as an e-book, e-journal article or a scanned copy) to ensure all students are able to complete the required reading
Ideally contain no more than 100 individual items, and provide clear information for students on how to engage effectively with the list. Students benefit from clarity of expectation, and readings which are realistic and achievable
To submit your list, you will need to:
Ideally publish your lists for each term by the announced deadline so that we have time to acquire all needed resources. The deadlines will be communicated directly via email to all list owners, as well as to department heads and Reading List Liaison Officers, in addition to being advertised on Warwick Talis website and our Reading List website information. We will continue to accept lists after these deadlines, but please be aware that we then cannot guarantee all resources will be available before the beginning of the relevant Term.
Ideally publish your list by 31 July, so that we have time to acquire all needed resources. We will continue to accept lists after 31 July, but please be aware that we then cannot guarantee all resources will be available before the beginning of Term 1
Indicate the number (estimated if not known exactly) of students taking the module
Indicate reading importances for each item on the list: at Warwick we use 4 categories of reading importance: student purchase, essential, recommended, or further. For each item on your list you should select a reading importance and this will then determine what format and / or number of copies is purchased. Most lists include a combination of essential and further (or background) readings
Ensure the Term(s) when the module will take place is indicated in the title
We will scan specified chapters/extracts from a text where possible. If you are setting more than one chapter or extract from the same text, please clearly indicate which should be prioritised for scanning
In order to focus Library resources on the acquisition of required readings, and to enable immediate access to information on reading lists by students, lists should be created or updated by module leaders. This approach gives you, as the module leader, full ownership and control of your reading list. You can easily check the status of any required new purchases/chapter scans, and any changes you make can be seen by your students as soon as you publish them, without having to wait on the reading list team to action your request, which can take up to a few weeks during peak periods. This will also mean that the Library team can direct resources to prevent backlogs in acquiring required resources and in supporting academics with their enquiries in a more timely manner
In order to ensure access to key reading materials, we aim to provide essential readings electronically as e-books, e-journal articles or as copyright cleared article or chapter scans
Please note that not all books are available in e-book form
Please also note that limited elements of a work can legally be scanned - you can copy up to the following amount for each module, whichever is the greater:
one whole chapter from a book
one whole article from a magazine/journal issue
one whole scene from a play
one whole paper from a set of conference proceedings
one whole report of a single case from a volume of judicial proceedings
one short story, poem or play (not exceeding 10 pages in length) from an anthology
or
10% of the total publication
We will indicate on your list if a book is not available in e-book format, and we can help you to identify alternative sources you may wish to recommend
Our aim is to ensure that students can complete the reading they need to and to support them in their reading strategies. This means that the Library will:
Purchase e-books for essential and recommended readings (and will secure the best possible e-book access model), and will not purchase more than a single print copy
Work with you to identify alternative readings to those not available as e-books, where necessary
Only purchase additional print materials where there is no e-book alternative
