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Library Information for Faculty

Leverage our Digital Collection

Seneca Libraries' digital collection offers excellent sources of authoritative and - from the student perspective - inexpensive readings for your classes. In this era of expensive textbooks, faculty may wish to substitute traditional textbooks with resources from our digital collection.

More information about eBooks as course readings

When you are linking to Seneca Libraries resources, you cannot copy and paste the URL from the address bar. You must find the persistent link (aka permalink) and may even need to edit it according to our  persistent link instruction guide.

You can get the persistent link for resources in Library Search by clicking on the title of the resource in your results, and then selecting Permalink.

►  (click to expand)

library search saving options with permalink highlighted

Alternatively, if you have found the resource in a particular database outside of Library Search you can manually create the persistent link according to the instructions for that particular database.

 Seneca Libraries Guide to Obtaining Persistent Links

Subject Guides are custom websites curated and maintained by library staff that centralize the key resources and tools that best serve specific programs and subject areas. They are intended as a starting point in the research process for students. Subject Guides are available for most program areas that have a research component, and faculty can link to or embed them within their Blackboard courses.

Faculty can enable the Library Resources tool in Blackboard to embed a library subject guide and connect students to relevant library resources from within their course page. By activating this tool, the Library Resources menu item that appears on the Blackboard course page will feature the recommended subject guide within the Blackboard frame.

To embed a Subject Guide:

► Contact your liaison librarian to confirm the Subject Guide you want to appear in your course along with your course code.

► Once you receive confirmation from your librarian that the link between the subject guide and your Blackboard course page is ready, follow these instructions for adding the Seneca Library Resources menu item to your course.

Link to a Streaming Video in Your Blackboard Course
Important! 

Copy & paste the following instructions alongside any links to videos from Seneca Libraries:
"You will be prompted to login using your Seneca email username and password. If you cannot view [video title] right away, you may be experiencing a slow network or a maximum number of viewers has been reached. In these cases, close your browser window and try again in a couple of minutes."

Acquiring a Permalink

To obtain streaming video links that work, always use the links explicitly provided by the streaming service. Do not copy the URL from the browser's URL field. To ensure that the link works within MySeneca, always set the link to open in a new window.


YouTube 

Click on the "Share" button located underneath the video screen. Expand the "Options" link to customize the quality of the video or specify different start point.


Streaming Videos from the Library

If you find a streaming video from our library search, click on the "..." icon and use the "Permalink" from the to copy the persistent link.image of item record with three dots in corner highlighted to show where to find more information

Next Steps

Once you have the link of the video, follow the instructions on MySeneca's Help on how to add external links to add the streaming video link into your course. Make sure to set the link to "open in a new window."

Instructions for creating more direct persistent links to specific streaming video resources (Curio, Films on Demand, Kanopy, NFB etc.) offered by Seneca Libraries can be found at this link.

Embed a Streaming Video in Your Blackboard Course

Important! 

Copy & paste the following instructions alongside any links to videos from Seneca Libraries:
"You will be prompted to login using your Seneca email username and password. If you cannot view [video title] right away, you may be experiencing a slow network or a maximum number of viewers has been reached. In these cases, close your browser window and try again in a couple of minutes."

YouTube

YouTube provides BlackBoard Building Blocks that make it easy to embed their streaming videos into the course:

  1. Select Build Content > Mashups: YouTube Video.
  2. You can search for a YouTube video within MySeneca.
  3. Select a video, and the video will be automatically embedded into your content area.
Streaming Videos from the Library (e.g., Films on Demand, Curio, Kanopy)

Many streaming platforms provide embed codes that work in MySeneca. In general, these are the steps to follow for embedding a video from the library:

  1. Go to the streaming video page of the title that you want to embed.
  2. Look for an "embed" link or section on the page. Sometimes, the embed functionality may be shown within the sharing functionality.
  3. Copy the embed code. Make sure you are highlighting the full code when you copy it.
  4. Open another browser window with MySeneca and log into your course.
  5. Select Build Content > Create Item.
  6. On the text editor, click on the down arrow button to see all editing options. Click on the HTML button, then paste the embed code that you copied into the HTML code view window.
  7. Important: Do this before you save / submit the item!* Within the embed code that you have pasted into MySeneca, locate the video URL (starts with http://) and add the following prefix: (see the screenshot for details) http://libaccess.senecapolytechnic.ca/login?url=

screenshot of the BlackBoard text editor showing the image and HTML buttons for adding an embedded code.

*if you save the embed code before you add the prefix, you will have to add it twice to the embed code - Blackboard creates a second version of the embed code once you save it, and if the prefix only appears in the second version, the embedding will not work.

Tips:
  • If you decide to embed a video, make sure that you do not have the video start to play automatically when the page opens.
  • To make the video accessible make sure that it provides closed captioning or add a link to the video transcript underneath the video.

Curriculum Integration

Course Resource Support for:

Truth and Reconciliation; Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion; Sustainability; Human Skills; and AI

Whether you are participating in Seneca’s Curriculum Integration initiative, or you are just looking to include more on these topics in your course, the library has many resources for each of Seneca’s priority areas:

TRC:

  • Subject guides: Indigenous Resources ; Indigenous History
  • Databases: Indigenous Studies Portal, Informit Indigenous Collection, NFB videos
  • College Libraries Ontario: Maamwi Hub - including Blackboard packages to import content and assessments directly into your course! 
  • “The Maamwi Hub library packages invite students to move toward reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples of Canada by deepening their knowledge and appreciation of Indigenous histories, cultures, and worldviews. The educational materials, reflection questions, and activities are non-program specific so that faculty in any discipline can incorporate them into their courses.”

EDI: 

SUS:

Human Skills:

AI:

 

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