New Blackboard feature means more control for UTSA faculty, less costs for students

UTSA students work at the computers in the UTSA John Peace Library.

AUGUST 18, 2022 — UTSA Libraries and Academic Innovation academic support division, have added a new feature to Blackboard, the university’s learning management system. Aptly named Library Reading List, it is a digital, interactive, self-service tool that will save faculty time, allowing them to build and manage their own course reserves and reading lists.

This new service will also provide students with low-cost or free access to course materials by automatically leveraging library subscriptions and open educational resources.

Faculty can add any resource with a URL to their lists including books, e-books, articles, websites, videos, and podcasts. Faculty can also incorporate and communicate with students via tags, notes, and due dates. All users will benefit from the Library Reading List mobile responsiveness features, allowing students and faculty to access resources on whatever device they have available.

“I found that Library Reading List not only helped me, but it also helped my students.”

The libraries and academic innovation recognized that faculty spend a lot of time and effort selecting resources for their courses and embedding them in Blackboard, but sometimes are not able to examine how students interact with the resources.

Additionally, students found it difficult to access the course’s resources, whether due to broken links, not being able to find the materials, or having to pay for online access to them. The libraries and academic innovation implemented and tested the new service from software manufacturer Ex Libris with great success this summer, prompting the full integration of the product across the entire learning management system (LMS) for the fall semester.

“The new tool will maximize library collection use, leverage librarians' expertise, and support teaching excellence and student success,” said Posie Aagaard, UTSA Libraries assistant vice provost of collections and curriculum support.

Library Reading List benefits enable faculty to:

• Search and add materials from the library, the web, or their computer
• Move resource lists from one semester to the next, with the ability to re-use them as needed
• View course materials in a single list, easily move items between weeks, topics, or even courses

“I found that Library Reading List not only helped me, but it also helped my students,” said Kelley Reno, a lecturer and internship coordinator in the UTSA Department of Kinesiology. “My students appreciated how materials had been organized. They commented that it was easy to use and were appreciative that the journals were so easy to find.”

— Germaine Williams