Many faculty include journal articles in their courses as required reading for students. These journal articles and materials are copyrighted. Contrary to popular belief, not all materials can be downloaded as PDFs and then loaded directly into the course.

As a best practice to avoid any potential issues, it is recommended that faculty in the University System of Georgia use the Curriculum Builder (also called, Reading Lists) external technology to load journal articles, eBooks, and items from electronic databases into their course as required reading. This tool may be available from the External Learning tools area.