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Online Resources in Credit-Bearing Courses

Jason Carroll Updated by Jason Carroll

Online Resources in Credit-Bearing Courses

In credit-bearing courses, both on campus and online, faculty will often provide reading lists, links to readings, or PDFs. The laws regarding electronic distribution are different than they are for limited distribution within a brick-and-mortar classroom, so you may find that not all of those recommended resources can be used whole-cloth in an online environment due to copyright or licensing restrictions, or because the documents are inaccessible. 

Mitigation: The library holds many of the same course readings but without such barriers, and Cornell University students can readily access them through their NetID. This article explores search strategies, types of available resources, and methods to link to resources held by Cornell University libraries.

Searching the CU Library

Types of Library Searches

From the library’s main page, there are six types of searches available:

  • All Resources: A keyword search of most resources available through the library. Search results are grouped by format.
  • Catalog: Items that are cataloged and are held in the library collection. Typically, these are physical items such as books, microform, multimedia, etc. However, other electronic formats, such as ebooks or electronic journal titles, may be present.
  • Articles + Full Text: A meta-index of most of the articles you can access through the library. Note: You must log in with your NetID credentials to access this search.
  • Databases: A searchable list of all the databases available through the library. Some databases have license restrictions for distributing materials or may be limited to a small number of simultaneous users.
  • E-Journal Titles: A searchable list of all the journal titles you can access through the library.
  • Site: Search the library’s website.
NOTE: If you don’t find a title in your search, it doesn’t mean it’s not available through the library. The “Articles + Full Text” search is powered by a discovery layer product called EBSCO Discovery Service. There’s another company, ProQuest/Clarivate, with a competing discovery layer product called Primo. Both companies are database vendors as well. They are fierce competitors; they won’t share all of the metadata to make every title discoverable regardless of the discovery layer. While the library may subscribe to the database, the content isn’t always indexed in the discovery layer and made searchable by users.

Since most course readings are known titles, the easiest way to search in the library is to use the All Resources search. The All Resources search will give you the most comprehensive array of available formats for the resource. The library search defaults to an “implied or” keyword search, but the most efficient search is an exact title search. Wrap the title in double quotes to perform an exact title search (e.g., “how to twirl a hula hoop”).

Search Tips

If your search doesn’t yield useful results, don’t give up. There are a few things you can try.

  • Long titles can sometimes trip up an exact title search. Try using the first five or six words.
  • Remove punctuation from the title.
  • Try searching for the author, if known.

Article Searches

Finding articles can be tricky. You'll need to dig a little deeper if an exact title search doesn’t bring up the article.

First Steps

Try searching for the title of the periodical that published the article. It’s likely the periodical is indexed in several databases. For example, the library subscribes to eight databases that index the New York Times. When choosing a database, pay attention to the coverage dates. There’s often an embargo on recently published articles.

Once you are in a database, use the search functionality of the database to run a title search. Databases tend to place a search box in the top left corner of the page.

Next Steps

If you can’t find the article by its title, run a search for the periodical. Once you find the periodical, you might have to drill down by the publication date or the enumeration (e.g. volume, number, issue). You will have the information you need if you have a good citation. If not, you may need to try a resource like Google Scholar to flesh out the citation.

HINT: Access Google Scholar through the library. The link contains a passkey that enables Google Scholar to reveal what resources are available in the library.

For articles published in print and online, check the title carefully: the print title may differ from the online title. Online titles tend to be longer and contain wording aimed at increasing search engine optimization (SEO). Also, the date of publication may be different between the print and online versions. Try an adjacent date if you can’t surface the article. You can also try to search by the author’s name, which can help surface articles when the title or publication date differs from the citation. 

Reading a Citation

Here’s an example of a citation in MLA format. While units/programs may use different citation styles, the components of a citation are universal

Resources

Types of Resources

Licensed Resources

The library uses a proxy service as part of its licensing agreements with database vendors. The proxied links require signing in with your NetID. Since students log into canvas.cornell.edu with their NetID, they won’t need to sign in again to view library resources. All proxy links are constructed in the same way, so they are easy to spot:

https://name-of-database.proxy.library.cornell.edu/

Open Education Resources (OER)

OER materials are available through the library and, as the name suggests, openly available on the internet from the publisher. If you run across an open-access resource, use the publisher’s link instead of the proxied version from the library, since the link from the publisher is the most stable.

Evaluating a Resource

When you can’t find a title in the library, it can be helpful to run an internet search. Be cautious about what you link to. Sites such as ResearchGate are tempting but can be very problematic. Authors may have uploaded articles without their publisher’s permission, violating copyright laws. When you come across a resource, evaluate the hosting site’s legitimacy. Do they have permission to host the material? If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

For PDFs, make sure a screen reader can read the text. An easy test is to highlight a paragraph in the PDF with your cursor. If you can’t highlight the text, it’s not accessible. Some databases contain optically scanned PDFs that weren’t run through optical character recognition (OCR). You can remediate inaccessible PDFs using Cornell’s SensusAccess tool.

Linking to a Resource

First, a caveat:

  • For catalog courses, it is best practice not to link directly to reading material as links may break. Generally, only matriculated students have access to CUL resources.
  • In credit-bearing courses, carefully evaluate any PDF readings provided by the faculty. Not all course readings are licensed for distribution or fall under fair use. Materials sometimes contain language restricting distribution. Materials that have been made available by a library often contain additional language that the article is for educational use only and cannot be distributed outside of the classroom. If the PDF is from another library, it’s not licensed to be used in Cornell University courses.

Once you have found the resource, it’s time to link to it. There are a few options when creating links.

There are a few considerations when choosing a link to the resource, but one thing is always true. If the platform gives the option to create a link (or permalink), use it. Don’t just copy the link in the address bar of your browser.

Often, you will have a choice about how deeply to link. You can link directly to the content (e.g., pdf) or to the record for the resource. Consider the following when making choices about linking:

  • Linking directly to the content ensures that learners won't have to hunt around for the reading and will have a more seamless experience.
  • Linking to a record gives learners context about the course reading. There may also be some options for accessibility, such as built-in readers or alternative formats. For library links, there’s an educational opportunity for exploring library resources.
Known Issue

On rare occasions, links to EBSCO databases and “Articles + Full Text” searches/records may appear to break. If this happens, first try opening the link in a private window (e.g., Incognito in Chrome). If the link works, everything is OK. Cookie corruption can happen when you run a lot of searches in the library. You can usually clear up the problem by deleting any cookies related to EBSCO or using an Incognito window to run your searches.

License Restrictions

Most of the databases in the library are licensed for educational use, but not all. For example, Harvard Business Review articles are often unavailable for free educational use in courses — but not always. If there is a restriction, it will be noted in the catalog record or the article. HBR articles can be purchased and made available in course packs, depending on the arrangement with the unit/program.

Before you attempt to link to external resources, run the resource through this quick checklist: 

  1. The resource is licensed for educational use outside the classroom or meets fair use guidelines.
    1. Cornell’s Fair Use Checklist is a university-wide requirement for faculty; the faculty partner is the person who has the responsibility for ensuring that fair use guidelines are being met. This is not something eCornell made up. eCornell can help by making the fair use checklist available, bringing it up, getting the faculty partner to complete it as needed, and storing the completed checklists with our other course documents. (According to Cornell University counsel guidelines, if a course includes 700 articles, then yes, the faculty partners needs to complete 700 fair use checklists.)
  2. The resource is made available through the Cornell University Library, the publisher, or a legitimate database.
  3. The resource is in an accessible format and can be read by screen readers.
  4. The resource has a permanent or dependable link that works in a browser’s Incognito window.

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