CAFE: Content ideas

Introduction

Readings can either be the main source of information for a lesson or they can provide background or context. 

When writing your MDP, it is essential that you give full references (or URLs where appropriate) for the readings that you want to include. This includes the specific chapter or section details if you want students to read only an extract of a textbook or journal article. 

Readings can include (but are not limited to):

• sections from textbooks
• journal articles
• blog posts
• company websites. 

Note: We are unable to use articles from Harvard Business Review as readings because of restrictions put in place by the publisher. 

Availability of readings

Your librarian from our Online Library will check the availability of the readings that you suggest in your MDP. The Library contains over 100 million digital items, including ebooks, journal and newspaper articles, law reports, British standards, videos and other resources. 

You are encouraged to use items for our existing collections, where possible, as often suitable material will already be available. If your requested item is not already in our Library, your librarian will check if it is available to license. This will depend on the cost and the number of students. The Programme Director has to sign off spends above a certain level. Where items are not available, the Library team will work with you to select and acquire additional content. 

Read our Online Library guidance for more detailed information and view the Online Library briefing video.

Further details can be found in the Sourcing texts for academic programmes policy document.

Example activities

These activities give an example of how to make the reading activities more active and guided.