What are external learning resources and how are they managed?

External learning resources are not owned by the UOC but by third-party publishers or authors, and require certain administrative procedures before they can be made available in classrooms.

Intellectual property legislation means the UOC must ask permission before publishing resources in a classroom and, often, must pay for this use. Consult the section on intellectual property for more information.

All requests for UOC resources are handled via the Learning Resource Requests tool Learning Resource Requests tool.

They include:

• Articles
• Book chapters
• Website links
• Videos on YouTube and other platforms
• Films on Filmin
• Manuals
• Software
• Case studies

All these resources are managed via the Learning Resource Requests tool, except for videos held in the audiovisual archives of the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals. A prior search is required for these resources and they must be requested using this form.

When you request an article:

Ask for articles published in open-access repositories with Creative Commons licences, such as http://hdl.handle.net/10609/108386, or in the Library's subscription databases.

Please note we cannot upload links that require a code, password or the cession of personal details, such as an article published in Academia.edu.

When you request a film:

Check it is available on the Filmin platform. Filmin.

When you request a video:

If the video is available on an online platform, such as YouTube or Vimeo, remember you can only publish titles uploaded to the official channel or page of the author and/or owner of the rights, such as this YouTube video.

When you request a link to a document:

The link must go to the page where the document is hosted (e.g. https://www.asimetrica.org/recursos/como-el-arts-council-en-inglaterra-invierte-en-la-ecologia-cultural-nacional),and must cite the source and author.

Please note that the link must not go directly to the document in a downloadable format (such as PDF, ZIP, doc, EXCEL, mp4).

When you request a book chapter:

If the chapter or chapters do not exceed 15.99% of the total content of the book, you are more likely to be given permission to use it in the classroom.

This does not mean permission will be denied if it exceeds 15.99%, but in this case you will have to contact the Spanish Reproduction Rights Centre (CEDRO) to ask for authorization from the rights owners. The owners may or may not give permission.

When you request a manual:

We recommend searching for it on the e-book platforms to which the Library subscribes:

• ProQuest Ebook Central
• eLibro
• eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)
• Edu-Library
• Taylor & Francis (ebooks)

When you request a software:

Each year, around October and November, our UOC Library team gathers information on software requirements. Before adding a software request to PERA (our learning resource requests tool), we have to make sure the software is included in the annual requirements. (This applies equally whether it is software we don't yet have or software we do have but on a different course).

Being included among the requirements doesn't guarantee that the software will be obtained, but it does mean that the Library will begin the process of evaluating its viability as a UOC learning resource.

Coordinating professors who request software as a learning resource for their course must:

1. already have an in-depth understanding of how the software works;
2. know how to install and use it; and
3. take into account the software's availability on different operating systems (Windows, iOS, Linux, etc.).

If the software is only available for one specific operating system, the coordinating professor must offer students an alternative.

Acquisition of software depends on budget availability, legal requirements for purchasing processes (different types of contracts) and the degree to which the supplier can meet the requirements of the UOC model.