What is an Online Resource Centre?

Online Resource Centres provide students and lecturers with free-of-charge, ready-to-use teaching and learning resources developed to complement the related textbook. For more information please see the page learn about Online Resource Centres and also our demonstration Online Resource Centre for examples of the resources available on the sites. Many resources are for use by lecturers only as they may be used for testing students and are password-protected to ensure only adopting lecturers are given access. Some resources for students are also password-protected and can be accessed by registering the activation code provided with the textbook.

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Accessing lecturer resources

Many Online Resource Centres have password-protected resources for use by lecturers. In order to gain access to these you must be a lecturer and have adopted the relevant textbook for one of your courses. Therefore, please ensure that your sales representative is aware of your adoption before applying for access. You can contact him or her via the find your sales representative page.

Once you have informed your sales representative of your adoption, please complete the registration form. This allows you to choose your own password and asks you to provide us with some details about yourself and the course you are using the textbook for.

After registering, your details will be sent to OUP for verification. When your registration and adoption have been confirmed you will receive a further confirmation email and will then be able to use your login details to access the site. Please allow up to three working days for this process to be completed. In the meantime, in order to gain access, you may contact your sales representative to request a temporary username and password.

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Accessing student resources

Some Online Resource Centres have password-protected resources for use by students. In order to access these resources students will need to create an account by registering the unique activation code that came with the textbook. Please see also the section below, what is an activation code?

Lecturers wishing to access student resources are not required to redeem their activation codes separately and will gain access to both the lecturer and student resources for a specific textbook by following the lecturer registration procedure above.

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What is an activation code?

Where student resources are password-protected activation codes are provided with every copy of the textbook. These enable students to register and choose their own password for access to the resources. Activation codes are often printed on an A6 card that comes shrink-wrapped with the textbook, but they may be provided in another way such as behind a scratch panel or behind a tear-off piece of cardboard. Each copy of the textbook has its own unique code. A code printed on a card will look something like this:

The activation code is a unique series of letters and numbers which has been assigned to a specific textbook and its related Online Resource Centre. Each activation code is designed to be registered via the relevant Online Resource Centre.

An activation code can only be used once, so it cannot be shared among friends. Second-hand copies of textbooks are unlikely to contain activation codes that are unused so you will need to buy a new copy of the textbook to ensure that you will be able to access the Online Resource Centre.

Activation codes are normally valid for a period of one year, but this may vary from one textbook to another. Please see the text printed alongside your code for details of how long the code, and your access, will be valid for.

Not sure if the Online Resource Centre accompanying your textbook requires an activation code?
Visit the Online Resource Centre homepage. If you need an activation code to use the resources you will find the following text:

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Forgotten username and password

If you cannot remember your username and password, please use the password reminder function. Simply click on any of the password-protected resources and follow the 'forgotten your password?' link on the login page. Once you have entered the email address you signed up with, your username and password will be emailed to you automatically. If you have received your username and password and are still unable to log in, please see the section below.

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Username and password do not work

Please check that you have spelt everything correctly and that the caps lock is not on - your username and password are case-sensitive.  If you are still unable to log in and are certain that you are entering the correct details, it is likely that your account is not currently active and cannot be used to access the password-protected resources. This may be for one of the following reasons:

Lecturers:

• Did you sign up for this Online Resource Centre more than 12 months ago?  If so, your login may have expired as all lecturer accounts are automatically deactivated after a period of one year. If you are continuing to adopt the textbook, please contact us to request that your account be reactivated.

• Are you registered for this particular textbook and edition? If you use more than one textbook then your account may only be valid for certain sites or your account may be valid for a previous edition of the textbook. If you are adopting a different textbook to the one you originally signed up for (including previous editions) please contact us to have your account details amended to include access to the new title. Please make sure your sales representative is aware of your adoption to the additional textbook.

• Has your adoption been confirmed? We are only able to activate your account if your adoption has been confirmed via your sales representative. If you have not already done so, please contact him or her via the find your sales representative page.

Students:

• Did you try to access lecturer resources? If you are a student who has completed the lecturer registration form for access to lecturer resources your password will not be activated and you should not attempt to access the lecturer areas.

• Has your access period expired? Students who register an activation code for access to password-protected student resources should note that access is for a fixed period. This is often one year, but full details are provided alongside the details of the activation code provided with the textbook.

• Are you registered for this particular textbook and edition? If you use more than one textbook with password-protected student resources then your account will initially only be valid for the site you originally signed up for. You will need to register one activation code for each book and can register additional codes by following the link "register your activation code" and then "register an additional activation code" in order to add the new Online Resource Centre to your original account.

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The page is not loading correctly

If the page is not loading correctly, there may be a temporary problem with the server. Please try refreshing the page. To ensure that you are loading the most recent version of the page, please refresh, on a Windows PC, by pressing the Ctrl+F5 keys together (on a Mac you should use Cmd + R). If the page still does not load correctly after refreshing, please contact us with the details of the page(s) you have been trying to access and when you were experiencing problems.

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Keeping up to date

There are two main methods for keeping up to date. Whether you have registered for an Online Resource Centre or not, you can use the 'keep me updated' link on the home page of any Online Resource Centre to send us an email confirming that you would like to be added to the mailing list for that book. We will then let you know whenever any new material is added to the site (we will not use your email address for any other purpose). If you have registered for any password-protected resources, we will also send you details of any new content on that Online Resource Centre.

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Required software

You do not require any specialist software in order to use our online resources and many computers will already have the necessary software installed. The following types of file are used on our Online Resource Centres:

To view these files you will need the free Adobe Reader. This will normally already be installed on your system but you can also download the latest version from the Adobe website by clicking on the button below.

The video files on our Online Resource Centres are Windows Media Video files and can be opened using Windows Media Player. You can download the latest version for free by clicking on the button below.

Some files are available in Microsoft Office format either as Word, Excel or PowerPoint. To open these files you will need to have Microsoft Office installed on your computer. Please note that you may experience problems with some features of PowerPoint slides if you are using PowerPoint 95 or earlier and we recommend using PowerPoint 97 or later.

To load some of our interactive resources (for example flashcard glossaries and the interactive maps and timelines) you will need to have the latest version of the Adobe Flash player installed. If it is not already installed, follow the link below to download it for free:

You will need either Chem3D or the free Chem3D viewer plugin on your system before you can view and manipulate Chem3D structures.

Audio files used on the site are provided in MP3 format and can be played in software such as Windows Media Player or iTunes. You can also listen to the files on your portable MP3 player.

Some resources are provided as compressed ZIP files. If your computer does not automatically decompress these files you will need to use decompression software such as WinRar or WinZip.

VLE content

Please see our dedicated learn about VLE/CMS content page for advice on using VLE content.

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Test banks

Please see our dedicated learn about test banks page for advice on using test banks.

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I need further help

If you are still experiencing problems, please contact us for support. We will aim to respond to your query within two working days.

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