The Course Materials Database (CMD) allows you to make copyright material available to your students online. Students can access the CMD from QUT Blackboard or via the Library web site. Material you can put onto the CMD includes book chapters, journal articles, conference papers, legislation, cases, whole works and past exam papers.
- Copyright
- Past exam papers
- Processing requests - time lines
- Adding new material
- Reactivating existing material - a single item from any unit for a specific date range
- Reactivating existing material - multiple items from the same unit for a whole teaching period
- Request Expiry Dates
- Linking to CMD resources
- Need help?
Copyright
Using the CMD for digitization of copyright materials ensures the University's compliance with legislation and contracts. It is University policy that if you want to make copyright readings available online for your students you MUST submit a request to the CMD. It is not acceptable to upload copyright readings directly to Blackboard. Making material available online is subject to very strict limits and access conditions. For more details on copyright and CMD consult the Guidelines for Online Readings. More information about the use of copyrighted material in teaching and learning is available in the QUT Copyright Guide. Direct further copyright queries to the University Copyright Officer at qut.copyright@qut.edu.au
Lecture notes that do not contain copyright material are not included in CMD and should be uploaded directly to your QUT Blackboard site.
If you wish to add any non-standard format items (that contain copyright materials) to the CMD, please contact the Library by email at cmd@qut.edu.au. We will look at these requests on a case-by-case basis, and assist in their loading where possible.
Past exam papers
Past exam papers which have been released by lecturers and which have unit class sizes of 30 students or more are automatically added to the CMD as they are released to the Examinations Section. To request addition of an exam paper for a class size of less than 30 students complete a CMD request form. To request the deletion of an exam paper from the CMD send an email to cmd@qut.edu.au.
CMD examination papers released via Examinations expire after 5 years. If you require an examination paper to be available on CMD for a unit but do not plan to release a new exam via Examinations, select the Self Activation of a Single Item option to extend access to the examination paper beyond the current request period expiry date.
Processing requests - time lines
To ensure material will be available to students at the start of each semester, you should submit new and changed CMD content to the Library three weeks before the beginning of semester.
Outside these busy times, the Library aims to process new requests within four days.
If there is to be a delay in the processing of your request at anytime due to a copyright difficulty, or because the item is on loan or not in our collection and has to be procured from another Library, the Library will advise you and keep you informed about the progress of your request.
Adding new material to CMD
Complete the online Submit new request form which is available on the CMD Main Menu. This menu is also accessible from your unit QUT Blackboard site under Learning Resources.
| Personal details | You will only need to enter these once, at the beginning of any session. After adding one item, you can continue and add material to the same or other units without reentering these details. |
| Unit code | You do not nominate the semester here |
| Resource type | Select from the dropdown menu |
| Bibliographic details | Mandatory fields are marked with an asterisk. The more details provided, the quicker we can process the request. Note:
|
| Request period | This is the period the document will be available to students in this unit and can be a teaching period or you can specify start and end dates. |
| Notes to Library | This field can be used for sending a message to the Library about the request. The note will not display to users of the CMD. |
| Notes to students | This field is used for providing a message to students eg. Essential reading for the mid semester exam. This field will display in the CMD and has a limit of 200 characters. |
Once you have submitted the form, the message confirming your request and providing a Request ID will display. Print this screen for your records. The request can only be cancelled at this stage by contacting the Library.
Select "New request for current unit" or "New request for new unit" to continue work without reentering personal details.
Reactivating existing material - single item
When a document is already on CMD, you can simply reactivate when it is needed again. You can reactivate documents attached to any unit, not just your own units.
From the CMD Main menu, select "Self activation of a single item" and then enter the unit code and/or the lecturer's family name.
The previous readings will be listed by lecturer's name and under that by resource type. Click "select" for the item you wish to reactivate. Complete the form providing your details, unit code and request period. Submit the request.
If there is no copyright impediment, your reactivation will be processed immediately and you will receive the message "A new item has been created (item id: number) for this item." No further action is needed and the document will become available to students immediately or at the time you nominated.
Where there is a potential copyright conflict with another reading in the CMD database, you will receive the message "The requested item (item id: number) has a copyright issue. This request has been sent to CMD staff who will investigate and will contact you if necessary." No further action is necessary. The CMD staff will activate the request if possible or contact you if this cannot be done immediately.
Continue by selecting "another item from the same search" or return to the main menu.
Please note: You will not see the readings you have just reactivated, if you have made them available for a date in the future.
Reactivating existing material - multiple items
Use this option to reactivate items in bulk for a particular unit for the next teaching period. In this case the unit code cannot be changed, but the Lecturer's Name can be changed. You will also only be able to select from a limited number of teaching periods.
If you require an item to be made available for a more specific date range OR a different unit code OR if you wish to insert a note to students you can use the Self Activation of a Single Item option.
At the CMD Main menu, select "Self activation of multiple items" and then enter the unit code and/or the lecturer's familty name.
You will see a list of all items recently requested or reused for that unit (and lecturer). The first part of the list includes those items which are currently available and will continue to be available until the end of the current semester, or have been requested for a future teaching period. The second part includes those items which have previously been requested but are currently not active or will become inactive before the end of the current semester.
Check the "reactivate" box on the right for the items you require and submit the request. Complete the lecturer's details box and then, for each item, select the appropriate teaching period from the drop down menu on the right. Click "Submit".
You will see a list of all the items you have requested to be activated, once again divided into two parts:
- The first part includes those items which have automatically been reactivated.
- The second part includes those items where there is a potential copyright conflict with another reading in the CMD database. These requests have been sent to CMD staff who will investigate and contact you if necessary. No further action is necessary. The CMD staff will activate the request if possible or contact you if this cannot be done immediately.
Please note: Readings you have just reactivated for Semester 1 will not be available until the 27th February. Readings you have just reactivated for future dates will also not be available until the start date you have chosen.
Please note: Previous "Notes to students" are not carried forward with the reactivation. You will have to insert a note after you have reactivated the item using the "self activation of a single item" option or by email to cmd@qut.edu.au.
Request Expiry Dates
Some existing CMD requests will expire 29 February. Use Self Activation of Multiple Items to check when your current requests will expire. Bulk activate them as soon as possible after 1 January to ensure they are available for Semester 1 (alternatively, use Self Activation of a Single Item at any time of the year)
Linking to CMD resources
A list of resources currently available for a unit on CMD can be found by searching on:
- the CMD website
- the Course Materials Database (CMD) link under Learning Resources on QUT Blackboard unit pages
- the Library's Unit readings and selected past exams search page
It is also possible to include manual links to CMD readings on Blackboard or other University web pages. From the list of CMD readings for the unit, right-click an item link and copy the URL (Copy Shortcut in Internet Explorer / Copy Link Location in Firefox).
The links should have the following formats:
- Standard link
https://qutvirtual3.qut.edu.au/qv/cmd_request_p.show_item?p_item_id=12345 - Where an accessible text only version exists it can be linked to using
https://qutvirtual3.qut.edu.au/qv/cmd_request_p.show_item?p_item_id=12345&p_text_only_ind=Y
From 20 May 2013, the format for direct links to digitised reading files has changed, and must be updated to reflect the correct formats above. The old links had the following format:
- Incorrect links
https://qutvirtual.qut.edu.au/portal/pls/portal/cmd_request_p.show_item?p_item_id=12345
https://qutvirtual.qut.edu.au/portal/pls/portal/cmd_request_p.show_item?p_item_id=12345&p_text_only_ind=Y
Need help?
Help with sourcing documents or submitting requests
- contact your Liaison Librarian
Help with tracking the progress of a request or any other CMD query
- email cmd@qut.edu.au
Help with QUT Blackboard
- email ithelpdesk@qut.edu.au
- phone 3138 4000
