In this part of SAFARI we are going to cover information resources for education. There are many education resources available to Open University students through the Open Library web pages and links to all of these resources can be found on the
Education spans a number of other subject disciplines. For example, it is closely related to psychology, management and social care so you may also want to look at resources for those subjects, use the drop down menus on the subject pages
You may also wish to look at all of the databases available to you through Open Library:
A growing collection of education books is available online via the Open Library website. A good starting point is the Online collections by subject page on Open Library. Select Education then your sub-category and put a tick next to 'all' to see the full range of resources, including ebooks.
For more information visit the electronic books page.
The Know UK database contains several useful education reference books including
Databases fall into two main types:
Databases are searchable and allow you to look for references on a subject in many different journals or books. You can find lists of education databases on the Open Library web pages at online collections bysubject pages. Choose your sub-category and then tick databases.
Depending on your area of study, you may wish to look at databases covering other subjects such as management, psychology, social care and social sciences.
There are many journals available to Open University students through Open Library. Use the online collections by subject page choose your sub-category and tick ejournals
You may also find it useful to look at the lists for other subject areas such as management, social care, psychology and social sciences, or at the complete list of titles available through the Open Library Journals page.
For up to date information on what's happening in the world of education, you may want to consult an online newspaper. Details of some relevant ones such as The Times Educational Supplement and The Guardian can be found in the
Nexis UK newspaper database.
In the field of education, you will often find that research results, policy documents, conference papers and so on do not always get published through official channels in journals, books or conference proceedings. Consequently they may be more difficult to track down.
You can find unpublished reports and pre-prints of articles on a freely available database called Education-line
It is also possible to trace research reports, consultation documents published by government bodies and agencies such as the DCSF, Ofsted and so on through their websites. You may find it useful to view the list of links on the Department for Children, Schools and Families Publications website/.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up with the plethora of green and white papers, reports of advisory committees, guidance notes and circulars relating to education. You may be able to get access to some of them via the websites of relevant government departments and committees. See the list of links to education related websites at Directgov as well as the education departments for Scotland, Wales and Northern ireland..
There are also specialist sites for tracing (and in some cases, retrieving) official publications as follows: UK Official Publications: UKOP
You may need to obtain statistical data relating to education and there are a number of databases available free over the internet such as DCFS Research and Statistics Gateway
For a full list of general statistical sources, see the Open Library Statistics page.
There are many sites on the internet where you will find useful information for education. Some gateways (websites that direct you to other sources of information on the web) and a selection of websites are listed on:
intute: social sciences, education
Resources specific to Open University modules are chosen by module teams and Library staff. If your module has these they will be available via your module website.
This subject is covered in more detail in Section 7.