Producing printed learning resources
Printed learning resources are often part of a course’s suite of materials in addition to online and multimedia resources and reflect the flexible learning environments of the University’s teaching and learning framework. This page outlines information about resources and services that will assist you in developing printed learning materials.
University of South Australia resources
The development of printed teaching and learning materials is assisted in many ways across the University. This section lists a number of services and resources you can draw on.
Learning and Teaching Unit (LTU)
The main types of printed resources provided to students include the course information booklet, study guide and book of readings. The LTU provides templates and proformas as well as completion instructions that you can download to your hard drive to simplify the creation process.
Academic developers located on each of the campuses can provide helpful advice about developing printed learning resources.
Copyright
- Copyright- In a nutshell - 5 minute overview
The Australian Copyright Act provides the legislative framework for the copying and communication of electronic, print, graphic, and audio-visual material at the University of South Australia. The University has developed general copyright resources that provide preliminary information. For further advice about provisions that apply to copying or communication done by you, you need to contact the University's copyright officer.
UniBooks
You can select and order textbooks and recommended readings for your course by contacting Unibooks the University’s preferred supplier. Although you are free to order textbooks through other suppliers the association between Unibooks and the University allows students to order and pay for textbooks online via the Unibooks link on your course home page, a handy service for off-campus students.
Library
Contact the Library for information and assistance on how to place materials on reserve in the Library. Off-campus students can access the Library’s Off Campus Library Service to participate in the following services
- loan of library resources
- document delivery of articles and book chapters
- online information service
- telephone information service.
Digital Resource Management Centre
The University's Digital Resource Service (DRS) creates electronic copies of excerpts from books, journals and other print publications. These electronic or digital copies can be included in online courses as individual items or as complete print Readers or burned to CD-ROMs. The online copies are also available to students through the Library catalogue. DRS and Document Services collaborate to provide these services.
Document Services
Document Services provides a range of printing and finishing services to all staff of the University. You can also arrange for printed course readers to be burned to CD-ROM by Document Services or digitised and offered as online readings. Document Services and DRMC work together to provide these services.
Additional resources
The links to the websites below provide a view of the range of practices currently being used in other Australian universities in the creation of printed learning resources.
Murdoch University Teaching and Learning Centre (TLC)
- Features and checklist of Printed Unit Guide Materials
- Features and checklist of Printed Reader Materials.
References on print learning resources
The following references are offered for further exploration of providing learning resources in print:
- Herrington, J (1996) Creating effective learning environments in print Perth Edith Cowan University, Ch. 8
- Lockwood, Fred (1992) Activities in self-instructional texts New York : Nichols Pub. ; London : Kogan Page.