e-Reserve FAQ

All third party copyright works (e.g. book chapters, articles or images) to be copied and used online under RMIT’s educational licence with the Copyright Agency must be added to the e-Reserve collection.

You can link to the material from your online teaching platform such as Canvas.

If you wish to host material in your online teaching platform, you will need permission from the copyright holder.

Exclusions

• Where permission to use a work in your teaching platform has been granted
• Material for which RMIT owns the copyright
• Works with a Creative Commons licence.

Library e-Resources such as library databases, e-books and e-journals can be linked to from your teaching platform. Please note that each licensed database is covered by specific terms of use.

Copyright works to be placed on e-Reserve must comply with the limits of the Educational Statutory Licence in accordance with section 113P of the Copyright Act 1968 (Act).

The following material can be scanned and placed on e-Reserve:

Hard copy print material

• One chapter or 10% of the total number of pages in a publication
• One journal article or more from a journal issue if they relate to the same subject matter. Note where the Library has a licensed subscription to the journal, we will notify you if you can link directly to the journal article or full-text database.
• Artistic works that accompany or explain text copied (such as diagrams or figures), or has not been separately published.
• The whole of a literary or dramatic work published in an anthology, such as a poem or play, if that work comprises no more than 15 pages of the anthology.

Electronic material

• 10% of the number of words of an electronic work, if the work is divided into chapters, one chapter.
• All of an artistic work
• 10% of a music work/score
• One journal article or more if they relate to the same subject matter. Where the Library has a licensed subscription to the journal, you will need to link to the journal article in a database.
• The whole of a literary or dramatic work published in a paginated anthology (PDF or Word), such as a poem or play, if that work comprises no more than 15 pages of the anthology.

Placing items on e-Reserve ensures that RMIT does not unknowingly breach the Copyright Act, and that we effectively record what copyrighted works we make available online to students. RMIT and its staff must adhere to the limits and regulations of the Licence Scheme. During the Copyright Agency sampling period, the University must record all works communicated to students, which would be extremely difficult to do without a centralised system like e-Reserve.

The benefits of the e-Reserve include:

• You can link directly from your course to the online document in e-Reserve.
• You can offer your students easy access to resources, 24 hours a day.
• You can make use of the same resources in courses developed for offshore delivery. For instance, if your online course is to be redeveloped for delivery offshore, links to library resources will not need to change. Students will be able to access those resources via RMIT authentication
• Digitisation Services staff will source and scan copyright-compliant documents on your behalf.

You can use the URL to the document in e-Reserve like any other link. You will need to include the author and title of the work with the link. Information on referencing the material you use can be found here on the Copyright guide. 

Below is an example of a URL you can use to link directly to a document in e-Reserve using standard attribution/referencing.

See also our guides:

Adding Library resources to Canvas

Reading Lists @RMIT

On average, it takes us 3 to 5 working days to process your request. Once your request is received, it will be placed in a priority order.

• Scanned documents you provide to us will be processed within 3-5 working days.
• Works available from the Library collection will be processed within 5 working days.
• The more accurate the details you provide, the faster we can process your request.

Only staff and students of RMIT University can access the e-Reserve documents. The documents are restricted by IP address to allow only authenticated users access. After logging in, a compulsory copyright warning notice will display as the first page of the document.

e-Reserve material is available in a Portable Document Format (PDF) by following a link from the catalogue record, or your online course.

The files can be viewed, printed or downloaded using Acrobat Reader 7.0 or higher. Download Adobe Reader.

Remote access is available to:

• Students off-campus (regional, home or work)
• Offshore students
• Students at RMIT University Vietnam

Students and staff can use LibrarySearch to find eReserve documents.

No, you can host PowerPoint or lecture notes in Canvas, provided RMIT owns the copyright or you have permission from the creator for that material. If you are using images, figures or diagrams sourced from books or the Internet, you must register each work in eReserve.

Please go to Using images, figures or diagrams in RMITs teaching technologies for more information.

Yes, you can send us scanned documents.

We reserve the right to re-scan or tidy up low quality documents to ensure copies provided to students are legible. We will let you know if this is required.