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Course Reserves

Course reserves are compilations of recommended literature and documents to accompany courses that lecturers provide for their students. A course reserve is usually held for the duration of a semester.

Digital course reserves may be established for each course on Moodle, the TUM e-learning platform.

Physical course reserves are available in our branch libraries on specially designated shelves.

Overview

Using Course Reserves
FAQ
Setting up Physical Course Reserves
Contact
Setting up Digital Course Reserves (DigiSem)
E-Tutorials
Copyright Information
 

Using Course Reserves

As a student at TUM, course reserves containing recommended literature and documents compiled by the lecturer are available to you on selected courses. The prerequisite is that your lecturer has set up a physical or digital course reserve.

  • Physical course reserves can be found in our branch libraries on special shelves. Just ask at the circulation desk.

    Items from course reserves cannot be borrowed. A short loan is also not possible. However, in all branch libraries you can scan short sections of the works free of charge.
     
  • Digital course reserves can be found in your course materials on Moodle, the TUM e-learning platform. You can easily access these documents anytime, from any computer connected to the internet.
 

Setting up Physical Course Reserves

Lecturers and teaching staff at the TUM have the option to setting up course reserves at the branch library of their choice. The course reserve is available to all course participants for studying in the library and for scanning.

You can place the following items from the library holdings on reserve:

  • books (one copy per edition will be provided)
  • single book chapters
  • articles from books
  • articles from journals or conference proceedings

As well as:

  • your own personal books and other relevant materials
    Please note our information on the Copyright Law.

How do you set up a reserve?

Please provide us with all relevant information on your planned course reserve. For this purpose fill in our web form:

Setting up Course Reserves

.. and submit your title list by using the upload function in the web form. You can upload the following files:

  • Excel template of the University Library
  • Export file from a reference management program (e.g. Citavi or EndNote)
  • Export file of OPAC record lists

Upload is limited to the file types txt, pdf, doc, docx, odt, xls, xlsx, ods.

Alternatively, you may also collect the items for your course reserve yourself in the branch library and hand them in at the circulation desk. Please also fill in the web form.

Please note:

  1. Items not held in the library collections are also provided with a library security tag. However, the library assumes no liability for these items. The same applies to folders and other materials.
  2. Books requested via interlibrary loan cannot be placed on reserve.
  3. Items placed on reserve are generally not available for either long or short term loan.
  4. You can call up the book inventory of your semester apparatus at any time via the online catalogue OPAC. For this you need the identification number of the semester apparatus and the password. We will send you both by e-mail.
  5. You can check which books are in your course reserve at any time using the Online Catalogue OPAC. For this you need the identification number of the course reserve and the password. We will send you both by e-mail.

Update Your Course Reserve
If you wish to add or remove items during the semester from the course reserve, please fill in the web form again.

The library will do the following:

  • We will compile the items in the branch library of your choice in specially marked shelves and book them in the library system on special course reserve accounts.
  • You will then receive a confirmation e-mail from us with the access data for your course reserve in the OPAC.
  • If required books are on loan at this time, we will recall them back from the borrower at the end of the loan period and transfer the items to your course reserve.
  • At the end date you have specified on web form, items will be removed from the reserve collection and the course reserve will be closed.
 

Setting up Digital Course Reserves (DigiSem)

As a lecturer, you can add a digital course reserve to any Moodle course. You can include 15% from books as well as articles from specialist periodicals or scientific journals from the University Library's holdings into your course reserve. The University Library scans the materials for you.

How to you set up a reserve?

  • Under "Work Materials" in Moodle, select "Digital Course Reserve".
  • Search in the OPAC and import the order details of the desired literature per mouse click into Moodle.
  • During the ordering process you can add the chapter or article titles and page details.
  • Moodle sends a digitization request to the library. The library will scan your selected literature, and the generated file will be uploaded to your Moodle course.
  • Please observe the copyright conditions.
 

Copyright Information

The following information constitutes neither legal advice nor legally binding information. It simply offers some tips on navigating the legal framework. We strive to keep this information up to date.

Translations of these materials into English are intended solely as a convenience to the non-German-reading public. Any discrepancies or differences that may arise in translations of the official German versions of these materials are not binding.

Within the scope of the German Copyright Law parts of a protected work may be digitized and made available under certain conditions, e.g. in digital course reserves.

The German Copyright in the Information Society Amending Law (Urheberrechts-Wissensgesellschafts-Gesetz – UrhWissG) comes into force on 1 March 2018 and reformulates, among other things, the provisions on the use of protected works for education and research (so-called limitations on copyright). The amending law creates new regulations for users from education, science and research and adapts the Copyright Law (UrhG) to reflect the digital age.

A new subchapter (sections 60a-60h UrhG) has been introduced and each of these sections is addressed to a specific group – e. g. students and lecturers at universities, researchers, libraries, archives – and is intended to determine in language as simple and clear as possible the future permitted use of protected works in teaching, science and institutions. In the newly created section 60d UrhG, so-called text and data mining, the algorithm-based analysis of data and information, is taken into account for the first time.

The previous sections 52a, 52b, 53a UrhG are thereby cancelled.

Use of protected works in education and teaching

What about documents made available and used before 1 March 2018?

Please ensure that materials made available before 1 March 2018 comply with the new regulations as of 1 March 2018.

What may I make available to the participants attending my courses?

Section 60a allows educational institutions to use protected material to a certain extent to support teaching. Works that have already been published may be reproduced, distributed, made available to the public and publicly reproduced within certain limits. Materials can be made available in both digital (e. g. on Moodle) and analogue (print) formats.

Examples of permitted uses in teaching and training include presentations in lectures, distribution of paper scripts to students and the provision of materials on password-protected platforms such as Moodle.

What requirements must be met?

Use in accordance with section 60a are only permitted if it serves to support training and teaching. Use is therefore only permissable in order to make learning materials more understandable and easier to grasp; use for entertainment purposes is not permitted. The acts of use must be limited to teachers and participants of the respective events. The provision of digitized teaching materials must be limited to the participants of the respective event and this must be technically ensured, i. e. the data must be password-protected. You can limit the number of users by using Moodle, for example, and take advantage of the opportunity to create a digital course reserve for your seminars.

Teachers and examiners of the same educational institution may share and pass on copies between themselves.

Permitted uses are still restricted to specific limits:

  • Up to 15% of a published work may be used.
  • If the material consists of illustrations, individual articles from specialist periodicals or scientific journals, other works of minor scope or out-of-print works, they may be used in their entirety.
  • Texts are works of small size if they are not longer than 25 pages, musical notes not longer than 6 pages, musical works and cinematographic works not longer than 5 minutes.
  • Only one single contribution may be taken in full from each journal.
    Please note: Press products such as general-interest magazines (so-called kiosk magazines) and newspapers are excluded from this regulation, only 15% of an article may be used here.
  • Film works may also be used in extracts of up to 15 %.
  • No physical copies of musical notes may be made, but digital copies such as scans may be produced and made available to the participants for demonstration purposes.
  • In school lessons, works intended for teaching at schools may not be used in accordance with section 60a as described above.

 

What should be considered when making journal articles accessible?

If the works provided are figures or illustrations, individual contributions from specialist periodicals or scientific journals, other works of minor size or works out of print, they may be used in full. Only one single contribution may be taken in full from each journal.
Please note: Press products such as general-interest magazines (so-called kiosk magazines) and newspapers are excluded from this regulation, only 15% of an article may be used here.

May I record my course and make it available?

According to the legal provisions, it is also permitted to broadcast content in distance learning, e.g. in lectures for so-called MOOCS (massive open online courses). Here too, it must be ensured that the provision is limited to a limited circle of participants.

May I cite works in my teaching materials?

Texts and illustrations may be cited (section 51 UrhG). In doing so, you have to consider the content of the citation and specify the source. Please note in particular that the citation of illustrations is subject to strict guidelines and must be checked carefully to ensure that they are fulfilled and that the citation of the illustration is sufficient. Detailed information on quotation can be found in the TUM University Library Citation Guide: http://mediatum.ub.tum.de/1225458


Use of protected works in own research

What may I make available to the members of my research project?

In the future, researchers will be able to reproduce, distribute and make publicly available 15 % of a work or – deviating from this – illustrations, individual articles from the same specialist periodical or scientific journal, other small-scale works and out-of-print works in full for their own scientific research in accordance with section 60c subsections 1 and 3 UrhG for their research group.

The requirements are that the groups' own scientific research must be carried out and that it is not for commercial purposes. It is important that the group of people with access rights is specified and delimited, i.e. the data must be password-protected. Materials may be made available in both digital (e. g. on Moodle) and analogue (print) formats. Access may also be granted to individual third parties for quality control purposes (e.g. for peer review procedures or awards). Unpublished works may also be used, e.g. for researching estates. However, only the copyright holder may decide on the publication of the work. General-interest magazines and newspapers may not be used within the scope of section 60c UrhG.

To what extent and for what purpose may I make copies for myself?

Within the scope of section 60c subsection 2 UrhG, up to 75 % of a work may be reproduced if the copies are used solely for scientific research and not for commercial purposes. The copies can be made digitally or in analogue (print) format. The duplications must not be passed on to third parties.

What do I have to consider when using journal articles for my own research?

Individual articles from a specialist periodical or scientific journal may be used for one's own scientific research according to section 60c subsection 3 UrhG. However, this does not apply to general-interest magazines and newspapers. Here only 15% of an article can be used according to section 60c subsection 1 UrhG. Otherwise, commercial offers of publishers must be used.

May I analyze protected works using text and data mining?

Yes, for scientific research with non-commercial purposes, works may be analysed automatically (section 60d UrhG). Works, which may originate from different, legally accessible sources, may be copied, normalized, structured and categorized for text and data mining in order to create an evaluable so-called corpus from the original material. The corpus may be made accessible to individual third parties for quality control (e.g. peer review). The copies and the corpus must be deleted as soon as the research is concluded. The corpus may, however, be permanently stored by libraries, among others.


Further information on use and availability

How is the scope of a linguistic work determined?

For the calculation of permitted use, all pages which are not blank pages and whose content consists mainly of text, i.e. table of contents etc., must be included.

May I use works for non-commercial purposes?

As a rule, works are used in regular courses at the TUM for non-commercial purposes (section 60a UrhG). In cases of doubt, e.g. in the case of fee-based courses or contract research, they should either not be used or the rights of use obtained.

May I embed works from other servers in my material?

Works from other servers (e.g. YouTube videos) can be embedded if the providers of the servers allow for it. To improve data protection, the other servers should only be accessed after clicking on the embedded work.

May works be linked?

Works can be linked, provided that this is legally permitted. In case of recognizable breaches of the law, the linking party is liable, so caution is advised here.

How may I use works under free licenses?

Works under free licenses may be used as the licenses allow. The most common free licenses are Creative Commons licenses. What is and is not permitted under the various Creative Commons licenses is described on the Creative Commons Corporation website: http://creativecommons.org

May I modify works?

Modifications are not permitted. However, translating texts and changing the size of photos and images in accordance with section 52 subsections 2 and 3 UrhG is permitted insofar as this is necessary for the purpose of research. Modifications going beyond this require the consent of the copyright holder. The obligation to cite the source according to section 63 UrhG must be observed.

What are out-of-print works?

Out-of-print works are published and still protected by copyright, but are no longer available in any version through the book sellers.

To clarify whether a work is out of print, the list of available books (VLB) can be consulted as the first source of information: https://www.buchhandel.de/ueber-das-vlb

The German Patent and Trademark Office maintains a register of out-of-print works. However, only works published before 1966 and for which licensing is planned by a collecting society are listed here. Accordingly, this directory is not complete. https://www.dpma.de/english/our_office/about_us/further_duties/cmos_copy...

Out-of-print works can be used according to sections 60a, 60c UrhG. In unclear cases, an out-of-print work should be treated in the same way as a not out-of-print work.

What are orphaned works?

Orphaned works are still protected by copyright, but despite careful searches, their owners are unknown or cannot be found. Orphaned works can be used under the conditions of section 61 UrhG.

How are authors paid for the use of their works?

Authors are entitled to compensation when using their works for teaching purposes (section 60h UrhG). The royalties are paid exclusively by the collecting societies (e.g. VG Wort). The remuneration is either flat-rate or is calculated according to a representative sample, depending on use. The exact details of the remuneration are currently being negotiated between the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs and the collecting societies.

 

FAQ

Can I also make e-books available in digital course reserves?

You can provide e-books and articles offered by the library electronically directly in Moodle as course material using "Link / URL" – you do not need to order this via the digital course reserve service.

Keep in mind that students are often not on campus when they want to access materials. You can define a link that simply allows students access via eAccess. If you want, for example, to provide the URL for the eBook http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-01135-1, then enter https://eaccess.tum.edu/login?url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-01... in Moodle.

Also, please make sure you use a persistent link. The links that are stored in the online catalogue OPAC are best. Right-click on the button "read online" and select "Copy Link Location". Alternatively, you can also use the link to the data in the online catalogue, the so-called Permalink, which you can create using the corresponding button.

The digital course reserve does not appear in the SFX menu – What should I do?

There may be various reasons for this; in such cases, we establish whether or not it is still possible to save your document in the digital reserve collection. Register  stating the title you want to order, at bibtechltg@ub.tum.de.

 

Contact

Questions about the use of course reserves? Trouble setting up a digital course reserve in Moodle? We can help:

Support with Digital Course Reserves

For questions, suggestions and feedback please contact us by e-mail: dokumentum@ub.tum.de

Support with Physical Course Reserves

For questions about setting up and using our services, subject librarians or staff in all our branch libraries will be happy to help you.

E-Tutorials on Course Reserves

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