Submitted library materials can have many formats, including simple word-processing documents with graphics, slide shows, movies, or links to useful websites. However, due to our membership's variety of browsers and versions, our pages are presented in a style most compatible with all internet browser versions. To help set up a course library, please follow the submission guidelines listed in the sections below. This will help speed up the creation of your course library content.
Content
If there is an item you would like added to the course library that is not covered here, please contact your course facilitator for assistance.
Library Organization
The course area provides access to the course’s main page, library, classroom, and message board. These become available to the course participants when the course opens (usually 7 days before the first Real Time Session). Library materials must be turned in to the course facilitator by 2 weeks before the course opens. This allows your course facilitator enough time to process your library materials, place them in the course library, and check that everything is correctly permission before the course participants see them. Your course facilitator will give you a checklist for when your materials are due. Your course facilitator is available to assist with your preparations for the course, so please don't hesitate to ask them for assistance.
The course library should contain any items relating to the course topic that you feel will be useful to the course participants. These include handouts, suggested reading, web links, videos, images, documents, crossword puzzles, etc.
The library items you provide are placed in either the Library > Class Resources category of the course library or in one of the Weekly categories.
Class Resources Category
This is where the general background materials for the entire course are placed. A list of references, a glossary of terms (mainly if many acronyms are used), and links to the VIN Specialty Centers, Plumb's, or the online Merck Veterinary Manual are typical items for this section of the library.
Weekly Category
Any additional items you have for the Real Time Session lecture topic can be placed in the course library category for that particular week. So, for example, if you were presenting a lecture on Guinea Pigs for Week 3 and had a handout listing dietary food sources for Vitamin C, that handout would be placed in the course library under Library > Week 3.
If you are repeating a course, your course facilitator will send you a link to the library of the archived course. Please review the library and create a list of items you would like copied to the library of the new course. You can request changes to those items after they have been added to the new course library.
New library materials should be submitted to your course facilitator. Please indicate where you want it placed for each item - whether in the Class Resources or one of the Week categories. Please provide written permission (see Copyright) to use any items you do not own.
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Copyright
Remember that any time you incorporate content into your Rounds, CE sessions, or course library, VIN/VSPN must be assured that the copyright is either yours or is appropriately recorded for use in VIN or any of its associated partners. Please confirm in writing that you have an 'exclusive right' to use the item and give copyright approval to VIN to upload the item and use it in your course or rounds.
Please email your course facilitator the written approval for copyright use. For an example of what a request to a colleague for copyright permission might look like, see Requesting Copyright.
For more information regarding copyright, please see: Copyright and Use of Items
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Journal Articles, Proceedings, Technical Papers
Purchasing a copy of a journal article does not equate to permission from the publisher to include it in the course library. If you would like to have copyrighted material in your course library, such as full-text copies of a journal article, it may be possible. We can ask for an electronic license to do this, provided it is relatively inexpensive. Most publishers are VERY SLOW to process these requests, so please let your course facilitator know a minimum of 3 months ahead if you want to include these types of materials.
If you can find an internet site that provides the document to the public without charging a fee, you can treat it like any other internet item.
Another possibility is to check the VIN Library for technical papers. See VIN Content for more information.
Alternatively, instead of providing the actual document, you can create a list of article references (see Text Document Guidelines) and leave it up to the participant to decide if they want to getText Document Guidelines) and leave it up to the participant to determine if they're going to acquire the document for further reading.
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General Documents
These are documents that you create. Things like handouts, a glossary of terms, references from the lecture, recommended reading, course syllabus, etc.
For repeat courses, you should copy and paste the page from the archived course library to a Word (*.docx or *.doc) document. On the Word document, please use the red font to indicate new text, the red strikethrough to indicate any information that needs to be deleted, and the red font to show any graphics changes.
References
Participants appreciate a list of references or resources for each Real Time Session or one document that covers the entire course that we can place in the course area library. When you create the reference list, please use the APA reference style for your references. Examples of acceptable reference formats for veterinary topics are provided in the Reference Style Guide.
To learn about the APA Reference Style, see The Purdue OWL: APA Style.
Please follow the Text Document Guidelines when creating and submitting your documents. Remember to designate where the document should be placed in the course library.
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Internet Content
Pulling materials off the internet is a bit tricky regarding copyright infringement. You can provide a link to anything posted online; articles, websites, images, videos, etc., can make good content for your course library. But you cannot download the actual item and have it added to the course area library without the written permission of the owner.
For instance, if you found an interesting video on Rancher.com demonstrating how to trim a cow's hoof, you could use that video link in the course library - sharing the link with others is acceptable. You must, however, download the video and put the actual video in the course library with the owner’s permission. Since many items on the internet are put there by people other than the original owner/creator, it isn't safe to assume the person posting the item is the owner. If you are unsure about the provenance of an item, then don't use it.
When submitting an internet item for the course library, send your facilitator the entire URL and designate the location in the course library where you would like the link added.
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VIN Content
VIN has many resources available that can be included in the course library. These include (to name a few):
- Plumb's Veterinary Drug Handbook
- Associate Papers
- VIN Specialty Centers (Resources categorized by specialty disciplines)
- Journal Articles - Abstracts and, many times, full articles available without cost
- Conference Proceedings from many different veterinary conferences
- Transcripts from VIN Rounds
- Calculators (Body Surface Area, Transfusion Volume, etc.)
These can be added to the library of any VIN CE course as a link with the following caveats:
- Participants who are not VIN members will only have access to these documents while the course is open. Once the course closes, non-members will lose access to these materials.
- VSPN participants cannot access documents from the VIN library, even while the course is open. So VIN content is generally not provided for courses that include VSPN participants.
Send the URL for the journal article, proceeding, or technical paper to your course facilitator and indicate where in the course library you want the link added.
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Videos
Acceptable video file formats include: *.wmv, *.mp3, *.mp4, *.mov, and *.swf.
Videos smaller than 200 Mb can be sent as an email attachment to your course facilitator, depending on your email server. If the video is too large for an email attachment, talk about using file-sharing software such as Dropbox with your facilitator.
Send your course facilitator an email and indicate the following:
- The name of the video file.
- Audio - Unless otherwise indicated, the audio track will be stripped from the video during processing.
- Copyright - If you do not own the video, you must acquire written permission from the owner (see Requesting Copyright) for VIN/VSPN CE to use the video. Please specify the copyright text for the video, e.g. (c) Peggy Hall 2015.
- Location - Please indicate where in the library you want the video placed.
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Images, Slideshows
Acceptable image formats include: *.png, *.jpg, *.jpeg, *.bmp, *.gif
Please create a PowerPoint presentation to hold the images for a group of images you would like displayed as a slideshow. For more information on creating and submitting a PowerPoint presentation, see Slideshows.
For a single image, please email the image at its highest resolution to your course facilitator.
- Copyright - If the image does not have copyright text, please include it in the body of your email. Your course facilitator will add the copyright text to the image before placing it in the course library.
- Location - Please indicate where in the library you want the image placed.
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Quizzes and the End of Course Test
Weekly online quizzes and the end of course test are presented online using our quizzing system. The quizzes will be placed in the course area library the day after the Real Time Session to which each quiz corresponds. The end of course test will be added to the course library the day after the last real time session.
The questions are multiple-choice and are graded automatically upon submission of the completed quiz or test. An explanation for each answer is highly recommended for your participants.
If you plan to offer weekly quizzes, it is good practice to formulate quiz questions pertaining to each week's topic as the course is being developed.
Please see the Quiz and Test Guidelines for information on creating a course quiz or end of course test.
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Multimedia - Educational Games and Learning Interactives
In addition to the typical library materials, the VIN Multimedia department can provide you with educational games (e.g., flashcards, crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, concentration, or sliding tile games) and learning interactives (e.g., interactive case studies). These items take 2 or 3 months to develop, so you must get started on them early. Speak with your course facilitator if you want to add one or more of these items to your course library.
Examples are provided in the Instructor Resource Center. Look under Course Library and Message Board in the Browse by Category menu for Learning Exercises and Educational Games.
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