Course Materials for Online Courses
Online courses follow prescribed content which therefore means prescribed book(s) and material(s). When a department develops a course for online offering, the instructor works in partnership with the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support to create the course for online offering. In developing the course, the instructor identifies the book and materials to be used in teaching the course. As subsequent faculty are contracted to teach the course, they are provided with a copy of the Blackboard course content from the master course shell. Information on the books and/or materials used in the course will be found in the content provided by CIS in your Blackboard teaching shell. Each instructor is responsible for obtaining their own copy of the prescribed book(s) by contacting the publisher(s) directly. The Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support automatically provides the book information to the CMU Bookstore for them to list the materials for the course to students for purchase.
Obtaining a Desk Copy
Instructors are responsible for obtaining their own desk copy of the book(s) used in the course. The desk copy request process is different for each publisher. The best course of action is to perform an Internet search of the publisher's name with 'desk copy' as part of the keyword search (e.g. Pearson Desk Copy). Publishers may ask that you provide specifics on the course you are teaching for which the book is being requested so be prepared to provide that information (e.g. course designator, title, number of enrollments, etc. If you are requesting well before you can determine enrollments or are not sure how to determine enrollments: utilize the number 35.).
Publisher Courseware
At times an online course may also require use of courseware associated with the book or that is otherwise integrated into the course. The Instructor Course Guide section of the course shell should provide you with insight into if additional software integrations reside in the course. Examples of this would be McGraw-Hill's Connect, Cengage's MindTap, Pearson's MyLab, Macmillan's Achieve, etc. When used, you will need to have an instructor account with the publisher/vendor. You will also need a copy of the publisher's course to pair, or integrate, with your Blackboard course shell. To request these items, submit a ticket to CoursePro and select Courseware Support as your desired service. In the request form, convey the course you are teaching, the courseware being used (e.g. Connect, MyLab, etc.), and whether you have an instructor account or not with the publisher. Staff from the Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support will assist you in getting you the access needed.
Course Reserves
Some online courses also use prescribed copyrighted materials secured through the Park Library's Course Reserve department. The Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support automatically provides these prescribed course reserves lists to the Course Reserve department. The week before the start of a course, you should see that the Course Reserves department has loaded the articles that have been selected for the course into the Blackboard shell. If for some reason, these materials are not in your shell, email creserves@cmich.edu.
Student Access to Course Materials
Students can locate information regarding the materials used in the course from the My Textbooks menu button inside the Blackboard course shell. These materials should appear in this menu button a week or two prior to the start of the class. To learn more about how and when these materials are populated, on the menu button see the My Textbooks Menu Button tutorial. Should your course materials not be populating on this menu button and it is just prior to the start of class, or class has started, submit a ticket to Issue with My Textbook.