University of Worcester: finding resources to support your academic research and writing

What you’ll need:

1. Your University of Worcester log in details 2. Your student homepage: http://students.worc.ac.uk 3. Once logged in, select Library Account to manage library record and loans; or select

Library Search to start your search for books, articles etc.

What is Library Search ?

Library Search (powered by Summon) is a search engine which will search the majority of library resources in one go. There are a small number resources which it cannot search (usually indexing databases which don’t hold whole journal articles), and this includes British Education Index, at the time of writing.

The main route for accessing Library Search is through your student homepage. Library Search is also available at http://librarysearch.worc.ac.uk and through your subject LibGuide at http://libguides.worc.ac.uk/education.

Resources you can access online - Education:

There are many online resources available, but some highly recommended ones include the

following. Most are covered by Library Search with the exception of those marked *. Links to all resources are available at http://libguides.worc.ac.uk/education

E-Books in:

Dawson Era

My iLibrary

Journal articles through:

Academic Search Complete (all subject areas)

*British Education Index

ERIC (Education Resources Information Center)

Taylor & Francis Education Collection (journals published by Taylor & Francis)

SAGE Premier (journals published by SAGE)

Wiley Online Library (journals published by Wiley-Blackwell)

Newspaper articles in:

Lexis Nexis (a database which holds many UK newspapers)

Current awareness policy, practice, news, legislation:

*Childlink

Some databases may only provide the references of journal articles, and you’ll need to use the orange Get It from ILS button found next to each article reference to check whether you can access the article online. This orange button will check the ‘online journals by title’ system (see page 2).

What else can I access?

1) ‘Online journals by title’

Where? http://libguides.worc.ac.uk/education, link provided in the Library and Journal Tools box.

What? If you a regular searcher of Google Scholar, or find references to journal articles in books and other places which you want to locate, you can use this system to find out if you can access a particular journal online.

To use this system, type the journal title and click search e.g. Education 3-13. If the university subscribes to the journal online, you should see a matching result with links to where you can access the journal.

In the Library and Journal Tools box, you’ll also find information about education journals we subscribe to, the inter-library request service, and links to Google Scholar and Zetoc, a useful tool for keeping up to date with the latest journals in your area.

2) Google searches for Education and Early Childhood

Where? http://libguides.worc.ac.uk/education/websites

What? Google Custom Searches and recommended websites. There are three searches: Government & Statistics; Research; and Teaching Resources. Your librarian has selected certain websites to be included in each search. The websites which are behind each search are listed in the three documents underneath the Google searches in LibGuides.

Also available within this page are subpages covering subject associations and online memberships, which trainee teachers in particular might be interested in; and educational publishers and suppliers, which we often use to find new library stock including textbooks and teaching resources.

3) Library FAQ

Where? http://libguides.worc.ac.uk/education/faq

What? Years of experience and common questions condensed into one page! Questions covered include those related to academic writing, referencing, library resources and education-specific queries, such as finding the National Curriculum. You’ll also find guides to using some of the resources listed on page 1.

4) ‘Latest news’ page on your LibGuide

Where? http://libguides.worc.ac.uk/education/news

What? News feeds for Education-related websites, such as Department for Education, the NFER blog, and others. You may find this page useful for keeping up to date. Education students may wish to sign up for regular email newsletters from NFER: http://www.nfer.ac.uk/about-nfer/nferdirect/subscription-page-nfer.cfm

5) Referencing

Where? http://libguides.worc.ac.uk/referencing

What? Advice related to the university’s Harvard style, and avoiding plagiarism. The Harvard guide provided here is the same as your print guide (provided during induction).