Subject Readings: guide for staff

Introducing the new Subject Readings tool that integrates with Moodle.

On your Moodle site you can add this just as you would add other Moodle activities. Turn editing on at the top left, click ‘Add and activity or resource’ and select Subject Readings from the grid. The cursor clicks the Subject Readings activity on the Moodle site to open the new subject readings tool.

In the new tool you can:

• See the status of your list under the title, for example ‘Draft’ status.
• You can organise resources into weekly or topic sections and there’s flexibility to move items and sections around by drag and drop from the blue panel to the right of each section and item.
• Use the ellipsis menus to the right of each item to edit, for example to specify which chapter of a book you want students to read.
• Add public notes to provide additional instructions for your students (e.g. Please read chapter 9 before your week 1 tutorial) or prompt them to think about particular aspects of a reading (e.g. Look at figure 2 in particular. How would you describe the main trends in the graph?).
• You can add tags to indicate what is essential, recommended or needs digitising by clicking ‘add tag’ under the item title and selecting a tag (e.g. essential, recommended, textbook, open book exam).
• You can also enable student discussion, which allows students to comment about items. When an item is clicked the student discussion panel is shown in the right hand panel.

To add items, you can click ‘Add items’ and search the Library collection. Then drag and drop resources on to your list. The Cite It browser extension is shown in the bookmarks bar. This is another way to add items you find while browsing the web. A video in YouTube is shown, the Cite It button is clicked and a pop-up window appears to the right of the screen which includes details about the video resource. ‘Add’ is clicked and the YouTube video then appears in the list.

Communicating with the Library about particular items is also simpler using the Library discussion panel to the right. The new tool also supports you in maintaining copyright compliance.

Moodle site is shown. Throughout your Moodle site, you can link to particular sections or items on your list. For example, in the Week 2 section of Moodle there is a link to the Week 2 section of the reading list. A page in a Moodle Book is shown. You can embed links to resources in Moodle Books via a hyperlink.

The published Subject Readings list is shown in Student View mode. For students, the new tool allows them to keep track of what they’ve read by clicking the tick beside the item title, easily report any broken links and add their own notes and tags to items.

The published list is shown in staff view. During session you can view student engagement with resources such as views, likes and comments for each item. You can click the Analysis icon in the icons panel at the top left to view more detailed usage analytics such. A graph is shown showing student activity form week to week.

To get started using the new tool, visit the Subject Readings guide for staff: https://uow.libguides.com/subject-readings-staff.