Academic Request Form - Digitisation Team

Skip to section:

• Setting up Academics
• New academic requests via the DCS dashboard
• Academic request: preview mode
• Academic request: assigned
• Add or edit metadata
• Assign to other course
• Rejecting the academic request
• Progress to active request
• Email to lecturer logic
• Academic request dates in HEI report

Setting up Academics

Go to 'My Institution' and scroll down to Lecturer Configuration.

You can use the search box to search by lecturer name or email address. If your Lecturer or Subject Librarian is not on this list - they will not be able to use the form. To add a new lecturer, follow the steps in this guide: Manual and bulk upload of Lecturers

The full details of how academics can sign up to use the form (once on the list above), can be found here: Academic Request Form - Academics

New academic requests via the DCS dashboard

Once submitted successfully, academic requests can be found on the Dashboard under ‘Academic Requests’.

Once in the request area you can click on each request which will take you to a request preview page.

Academic request: preview mode

In the request itself you can see the original academic request, as well as how much this has managed to match against data in the DCS (on the left hand side).

Items will only auto-match when:

• The Course or Module with the same Course Code has already been added to your DCS instance - if not, please add the Course Code
• The ISBN of the book is already in the DCS (even if used by another institution)
• The ISSN has been used with the same article title already in the DCS (even if used by another institution)

This is as much as you can do here. This is a Read-Only access only. To start working on the request, please click ‘Assign To Me’.

Academic request: assigned

Once assigned, requests are now on the second tab of the ‘Academic Request’ section of the DCS Dashboard.

Either as soon as you click ‘Assign To Me’, or after entering the ‘Academic Requests in Progress’ of the ‘Academic Request’ section of the DCS Dashboard, and then clicking on the request, you will see an editable version of the request page.

Add or edit metadata

If items are missing, these can be added. Even if items match, they can still be overridden (we know academics are not always correct so all items are completely editable before you create the request).

You can now also update the page range from this screen. To do this, click on 'Update Range':

 

Assign to other course

If you've changed course, click on 'Save Course' to save your changes:

It is possible to search by title or ISN if the information provided by the academic/lecturer is incorrect (e.g. if they have mistakenly put in the wrong ISN):

• Use the search bar to search by Title, ISN or DOI (articles) when the auto-matched record is wrong or missing
• Use the page range bar to add a new page range if the one used by the academic is wrong, or if they didn't add one
• If you've selected a new metadata record and/or changed the page range, click 'Assign metadata' to save your changes

• If you're searching an the record you need isn't found, firstly check that you're searching for the correct item type: the DCS searches different databases depending on whether the academic requested a book or a journal article. Check the original request details on the right hand side of your request to see if they requested a book or an article. If they requested the wrong type, click 'Is Book' or 'Is article' to search the correct database, then click 'search' next to the search bar again 
• If there still isn't a match on a record, click 'add new record' and enter the metadata manually 

Rejecting the academic request

If you are already confident at this stage that you cannot supply what was requested, then you can reject the request.

Then you can select the reason and ‘Reject’ or ‘Cancel’.

You can confirm that you wish to notify the Academic or not, and enter your text around the request details if you selected ‘Yes’.

This will send an email to the academic.

Rejected requests can be deleted entirely from the system as soon as they are rejected. Or else kept as they are, where they’ll be reportable from the new report ‘Rejected Requests’.

Progress to active request

If you are happy to proceed on a request you can select ‘Progress to Active Request’.

You will need to have assigned a course and extract first!

Now you are in an Active Request, and the request disappears from the ‘Academic Request’ section of the Dashboard. It is now a request – like any other – with a few exceptions.

You can still reject the request, which will work as detailed previously.

You can also see the original request details in this request.

Extract details are automatically auto-matched from the request, however these can be amended or alternatively you can try to source these from the DCS.

Once a link has been generated you can click 'Email to Lecturer' 

This will open a popup that is pre-filled exactly like the 'Reject Request' email popup.

Email to lecturer logic 

The logic for email lecturer works as below.

Academic Request - email to original requester, even if another lecturer is selected in the request

Normal request where no lecturer is selected - email to Lead Lecturer 

Normal request where a lecturer is selected - email to selected lecturer

This will complete your request and allow you to send this back to the requester.

Academic request dates in HEI report

In your HEI Report, an academic request will have a separate Date Received (when request sent though) to Date Request Created (when you click ‘Progress to Active Request’).

You can run a new report 'Rejected Requests' for rejected academic requests.