Persistent Links to Articles   Tags: articles, blackboard, persistent links  

For more information about copyright law as it applies to articles in Blackboard, check out these links:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kharied/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

When you assign your students articles to read for a class, how do you make those articles available to them? Do you give them citations and tell them to find the articles on their own? Do you put the articles on e-reserve? Do you retrieve the articles yourself and upload copies to Blackboard?

Be aware that downloading copies of articles from BGSU library databases and then uploading them to Blackboard for your students may violate copyright law. Database vendors generally do not allow this sort of use in their contracts (but see the box below for exceptions).

A better idea is to use Blackboard to provide students with persistent links (also called permalinks) to the articles you want them to read. Students will be able to access the articles both on and off campus, and you don't have to go through the reserves process.

If a database is down or otherwise malfunctioning, it's okay to upload an article temporarily so that your students can still access it. For this reason, it's a good idea to download copies of any articles you assign, just in case.

If an article you want is not available through the library, you'll need to use the BGSU Libraries' reserves system instead.