Books
Overview
The Faculty Portal Course Management Books page is primarily used to assign books to a specific course section. Books can be selected for assignment to specific course sections either by searching existing book records, or by adding a record, and then assigning.
Set Up
Books can be assigned a category, and those book categories are entered using Bookstore Categories. To activate the ISBN search, the settings in System Variables must be checked for Faculty Textbooks.
A search template containing a school year and semester drop appears first. If the school year + semester combination finds course sections taught by the faculty member, a course drop will also appear in the template. If more than one section is taught for that the selected school year and semester, the various course sections can be selected from this course drop.
The list of books assigned to the selected course section appears below the search template. Remember that the books listed represent assigned books. Therefore, checking a Remove checkbox and clicking Remove Selected Textbooks removes the assignment, NOT the book. The book remains for potential assignment to other course sections. For the same reason, the assigned books are not editable.
The Reqd column determines whether or not the item is required for the course section.
Below the assigned books list is a book search function that searches for books that were previously added. It searches for substrings, so if "br" were entered in the Title search box, all resulting titles would include "br" in somewhere in the title. In other words, substrings should be well thought out to retrieve just what is desired.
The title link assigns an existing book to the course section (not shown).
If the desired book is not found in the search results, it will need to be added. Begin adding a book by clicking the Add New Textbook button.
Searching For Existing Books and Assigning Books
Before adding a book to the system, search for that exact book. It is important not to create duplicates. While the search does a substring search, if it is used incorrectly, as in the example below, the results are likely to be large and include items far from the book being searched for. The title and the author's last name should be combined to narrow the results.
Searching can also be used to find specific items to edit. For example, it may be necessary to change the price of an item. The title in the list is a link to the full record of that item for editing. (not shown)
Adding Books Without Using the ISBN Template
If Use Faculty Textbooks ISBN is not checked, the Add template looks like the image below. The ISBN textbox is for entry only. There is no search capability on this page beyond duplicate checking.
Faculty Portal Books
The Systems hub page Tbl: Textbooks can be used to add books to Jenzabar SONIS, only the Faculty portal's Books function can assign the textbooks to specific course sections. A search template is provided in both the portal and the Systems page, and it is important to conduct a thorough search for a book before adding it to the textbook listing.
System Variables
The ISBN options must be selected in System Variables for the Faculty Books module to display the option to search by ISBN number in either the Faculty portal or the Tbl: Textbooks page. The book search will only allow Title and Author Names if it is not enabled. When enabled, the Add template will include an ISBN and Title search. The ISBN search requires a complete match. There is no substring searching.
The result will either be a single item, as shown below, or the ISBN will not be found, in which case, there is an option to add it manually.
If the Add Textbook link is clicked the following page appears. It confirms the title and allows a category to be assigned to the item. Clicking the Add Item button opens the following page.
The book can be added as-is or edited and then added. The Submit button saves the item to Jenzabar SONIS. The highlighted buttons will only appear to Faculty. They are used to assign the item to the specific course section indicated on the button (i.e. Counseling Psych) once it has been saved to Jenzabar SONIS. In addition, the second button flags the assigned item as Required.
Below is the Add template that displays when Yes (above) is selected.
Title Searches
Title searches perform substring searches, so it is very easy to get titles in the results that are irrelevant to the desired book. For example, if the user entered br as the title being searched, they would get any titles that have a "br" together anywhere in the title. Therefore, it is wise to use more information when performing the search. Remember that the third-party database of books being used returns 40 results. This is less of an issue if the title is not common, such as "Raven Girl."
The item desired is more likely to come up in a 40-item result set (as shown below) when the title is uncommon. Notice how the return set is ordered when more than one word is in the search string. The adjacency of the two words "Raven Girl" are displayed first. Next are the items containing both words in the title but not next to one another, then the items containing the first word alone in the title (i.e. "Raven"), and finally the items containing the second word alone in the title (i.e. "Girl").
When the title is common (ex. "Great Expectations"), the odds are against a specific edition showing up in the 40 items displayed.
In the results below, items that are not the actual novel show up. If it's the novel desired, books ABOUT the novel reduce the likelihood of a specific edition of the novel returning. When looking for a specific edition, it is recommended that the ISBN search be utilized. If the ISBN is unknown, it can usually be found by searching websites that sell books.
Course and Course Section Searches
Items that have already been added to Jenzabar SONIS have search templates similar to the ones already shown. The Course: Add/Edit, Course Section: List, and Bookstore pages have more information regarding books being associated with sections.