How to use Born Digital material

On June 22nd 2022, the DCS repository was enriched with over 50,000 publisher original book titles. This means that DCS users now have the option to add high quality, publisher original content to their digitisation requests, without having to take the time to scan content their own.

In November 2022, we launched an additional 62,546 titles from Springer Nature, taking the total of Born Digital content to just over 120,000. We now have content available from the following publishers:

• Burleigh Dodds
• Wiley
• Kogan Page
• Taylor & Francis
• Springer Nature

On 21st November 2022, we launched an additional 62,000 titles from Springer Nature.

We will continue to add publisher original content to the DCS, and will notify users as to when these updates are coming.

The digitisation process will remain the same, and users will need to own a copy of the Born Digital material in order to be able to attach it to a digitisation request, as you do with non-Born Digital material. If you do not own the content, you will be able to purchase the chapter via EHESS. There is no obligation to use the Born Digital material and users will have the option to upload their own PDF scan if they would prefer to.

Please see the below steps to understand how to use Born Digital content:

For manual requests

1. Enter your ISBN in the search bar, as usual:

2. Enter your page range, and click "Next" (you will see the addition of our Born Digital icon to the right of the book title. This shows you that there is publisher original content available for you to attach to the request, if you wish):

3. You will be redirected to the Content Request page, as usual. Here you will see the addition of a book cover in the book metadata panel. Book covers will only be present for Born Digital titles, and where no book cover is available, you will see a placeholder image telling you that there is no image available:

4. From here, work your way through the licence compliance verification section, as normal. As is the case with any digitisation request in the DCS, you will need to own a copy of the Born Digital material in order to use an extract from it. As long as the ISBN searched for is within your library holdings, you may progress with the request. If you do not own a copy of the material, you may still purchase the extract via EHESS, as you would with a non-Born Digital title, but bear in mind that if you order from the British Library, the scan you receive will be from their holdings, and not a Born Digital original.

6. Next, assign your request to a course, as normal.

7. Complete Extent Limits, as normal.

8. Once you have completed licence compliance, course selection and extent limits, you will see the new Source Content Panel. This panel is split into 3 sections:

Where a Born Digital original is available, the option to create an extract will sit within the Born Digital Originals section. 

Once you have created an extract (see steps 8-10 below), the page range you have selected will be stored in the Born Digital Extracts section. Any previous Born Digital extracts made by other HEIs will appear in here for you to use, providing they are covered by the CLA licence. Anything not covered by the CLA licence will appear as Private and will only be available for your institution to use, as normal.

Crowd-sourced Extracts is the original panel you are used to seeing. This holds any PDF scans uploaded by an HEI. This will work in exactly the same way as normal - if you do not wish to create a Born Digital extract, you may upload your own scan as normal.

8. To create a Born Digital extract, click on the "Create Extract" button. 

9. A confirmation screen will appear with the book metadata and the request information within it. If you click "back", you will be taken back to the Source Content Panel. If you click "confirm" your extract will generate:

10. Once you have confirmed you selection, your extract will generate and save in the Born Digital Extracts section (please note that the time taken to generate your extract will depend on the size of the file. If your extract does not generate immediately, please click on the "refresh" icon at the top of the Source Content panel to generate):

11. Once your content has been generated, you can preview it, as normal, to ensure that the extract is exactly what you are looking for. Please be aware that roman numeral requests are likely to be incorrect at this stage. We are working hard to ensure that this functionality is released as soon as possible.

12. If you are happy with the extract, click on "select". If you do not wish to use the extract, or if it is incorrect for whatever reason, please select "delete". You will be able to delete content before the link in published, just as you can with crowd-sourced content. You will notice that once the extract has been generated, the "create extract" button is disabled. This is to prevent the DCS being filled with duplicate extracts. If you were to change the page range of your request, the "create extract" button would become available again.

13. Once the extract is selected, you will be able to generate the link and share it with the requester or copy and paste to your reading list/VLE, as normal.

Using the Academic Request Form/RLMS API

1a. Academic requests will still appear in the New Academic Requests section of your dashboard:

2a. Click into New Academic Requests.

3a. Click on the academic request you would like to open, as normal.

4a. The request metadata will appear as normal and you will need to assign the request to yourself in order to progress:

5a. Ensure that there is a course assigned before clicking "Progress to Active Request". 

6a. You will be redirected to the Content Request page, as usual. If the ISBN selected is of Born Digital origin, you will see the addition of a book cover in the book metadata panel. Book covers will only be present for Born Digital titles, and where no book cover is available, you will see a placeholder image telling you that there is no image available:

If the ISBN selected is not of Born Digital origin (that is, there is no publisher original content available), the metadata panel will appear as normal, and there will be no book cover.

7a. Follow steps 4-12 (within manual request process above) above to complete the request journey, as normal.

8a. Once you have selected your piece of Born Digital Content and have generated the link, the link will sync with your integrated reading list. If your reading list is not integrated, from here, you may copy and paste the link and share with the requester, or copy to your VLE.