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 take a look at our demonstration resources.

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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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 i.e. the textbook must be the main recommended book for students to buy for your course. Therefore, please ensure that your sales representative or local branch office is aware of your adoption before applying for access. You can find out who to contact 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. Once you have submitted the form you will be sent an email containing a secure link which you will need to click on in order to complete the registration process. If this does not arrive please check your junk email folder before contacting us at orc.help@oup.com.

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. If you require temporary access to an Online Resource Centre, in order to try out the resources before deciding whether to adopt the textbook, please contact your sales representative who can arrange this.

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Most Online Resource Centres contain free, open-access resources for students. Some student resources are password-protected and require a username and password that are printed in the preface of the book. There are a few Online Resource Centres with password-protected student resources, which require an activation code. 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 who are adopting the book and wish to access password-protected 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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Where student resources are password-protected and require an activation code, 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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When you complete a registration form on the site you should receive an automated email containing a verification link. We ask you to click on the link to confirm that the email address you entered in the form is a genuine address. If the link does not arrive it is possible that it has been blocked by a spam filter. Check your junk email folder and if the verification email is not there please contact us at orc.help@oup.com, providing your full name and the email address that you registered with.

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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 or username 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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Please check that you have spelt everything correctly and that the caps lock is not on - your password is 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 visit your profile to request that your account be reactivated.

• Have you verified your account? When registering, you will have been sent an email containing a secure link. You must click on this link to complete the registration procedure and activate your account. If this did not arrive please check your junk email folder before contacting us at orc.help@oup.com.

• Are you registered for this particular textbook and edition? If you are adopting a textbook which is different from the one you originally signed up for (including previous editions) please visit your profile to have your account details amended to include access to the new title. Please make sure your sales representative is aware of your adoption of 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 your sales representative.

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. You can check when your access expires from your profile page.

• 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 from your profile page.

• Have you verified your account? When registering, you will have been sent an email containing a secure link. You must click on this link to complete the registration procedure and activate your account. If this did not arrive please check your junk email folder before contacting us at orc.help@oup.com.

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Your personal profile page lists all of the resources you have access to and the details we hold about you. You can access your personal profile page via the link at the very top of every page within the Online Resource Centre portal. The profile page is split up into the following sections:

Resources

This section lists all of the resources you have access to and the expiry dates of your access. From this section lecturers can request a renewal of a subscription if it is approaching the expiry date and also request access to additional Online Resource Centres for other textbooks you are adopting. Please note that, as for new registrations, your sales representative will need to be aware of your continuing/additional adoption and you should allow up to three days for your access to be granted. Students can also follow a link from this section to register an additional activation code.

Log in details

Follow the link in this section if you would like to change your username and/or password.

Your details

This section shows your personal contact details. Please remember to amend any information here if it changes. If you are changing your email address, and this is also the username you use to log in with, you might also wish to update your username at the same time (see above) to avoid any confusion.

Resource information

This section lists information relevant to the specific resources you are using. Please remember to update this information if any of it changes.

Save changes

Click on the 'Save changes' button if you have made any changes to your details and would like these to be saved. If you have accidentally changed any information you can click the 'Reset' button to cancel any changes and return all fields to how they were when you logged in.

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 email us at orc.help@oup.com with the details of the page(s) you have been trying to access and when you were experiencing problems.

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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 automatically send you details when any new content is published on that particular Online Resource Centre.

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For the vast majority of our resources, you do not require any specialist software. The main exception to this is if lecturers wish to take full advantage of the technical functionality provided by test banks (although it is possible just to use the Word versions of these instead). For more information on test banks and software formats please see our dedicated learn about test banks page.

For most other types of resources, 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.

Most of 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.

Mac users: In order to download and view Windows Media Video files you will need to download a plug-in. Microsoft recommends Flip4Mac, available at www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx

Some video files require Adobe Flash 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. These are usually in version 97-2003. 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.

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

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

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Oxford University Press aims to make its websites accessible to the widest possible audience. We try to be standards compliant and follow the general principles of usability and universal design. These principles include:

• • using cascading style sheets (CSS) to control page layout and to keep the content clean;
• • supplying alternate text for images;
• • applying HTML tags appropriately;
• • presenting additional markup in data tables and forms to help assistive technologies.

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If you are still experiencing problems, please complete our feedback form. We will aim to respond to your query within two working days.

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