In some cases, the journal article is made available under a licence that prohibits posting to LEARN. Reach out to us at copyright@uwaterloo.ca for information about such restrictions.
The licences for some e-journals provided by the Library allow instructors to upload articles into secure course management systems such as Waterloo's LEARN. While there may be good reason to upload articles to LEARN, it is important to consider that doing so may mean that your students do not have the most recent version of the article. It is not unusual for publishers to make additions or corrections to articles after initial publication. If such changes are made after a copy has been uploaded, they will not be reflected in that copy. A direct link is the best way to ensure access to the most recent version of an article. Linking to the article also allows the Library to track use and obtain data about the importance of a particular journal to the campus.
You are free to create a direct link yourself, or you might want the Library to do this for you through the Course Reserves service. As well as saving you time, Library staff will create a persisten link that ensures that students have access to the article without having to connect to the Library’s proxy server before logging in to LEARN.
Even in cases where our licences permit uploading and linking to articles in LEARN, it is important to remember that licences generally do not permit you to upload to a website, or to create links on a website, that is not part of the University’s secure network, and that is open to the world at large. None of the licences that the Library has with publishers allows for uploading to, or linking from, websites that allow access without authentication by Waterloo faculty, staff, or students.
