JISC Services Case Study - JISC Collections
St Helens College through the use of JISC Collections was able to access quality resources at a time and place to suit the learner.
Accessing the collection
'Learners can familiarise themselves with resources and systems they will have when they move on to Higher Education' The introduction of a new Moodle virtual learning environment at St Helens College was a timely opportunity to review and integrate the JISC collections service using Shibboleth on Windows. It was hoped that the new system would be simple to use, reliable and accessible to both students and staff at times and locations to suit their individual needs.
JISC collections is now being used to deliver a range of quality, cost effective, on-line digital resources that can be easily accessed by a single log-in and are supportive of the college curriculum offer.
About JISC Collections
JISC Collections’ mission is to support UK education and research by delivering affordable, and relevant online content.
Funded by JISC, JISC Collections provides its members with a catalogue of free and subscription-based online resources such as e-journals, e-books, full text databases, digital images, online film, and geospatial data. JISC Collections always strives to widen accessibility to online resources, save its members time and money and to evolve licensing in line with members needs and the digital environment
The service has three main aims, to provide the UK HE and FE communities with:
- ‘value for money’
- innovative resources to enhance and enrich research, learning and teaching
- access to essential niche resources for research or learning and teaching that would otherwise only be available to institutions at commercial rates
Challenge
St Helens College offers its students a range of online resources; some are purchased through the library on a subscription basis via JISC Collections for example InfoTrac, Taylor and Francis e-books and Bureau van Dijk databases. Other collections such as Education Image Gallery, the UK National Academic Archive and Digimap OS have been subsidised or bought by JISC Collections and made freely available to institutions. The challenge for St Helens College was to make its online resources, available to full/part-time students and staff outside college hours and at remote locations. Both staff and students required single sign-in access to both college and JISC collections resources that was simple to use and reliable. The service offered also needed to be cost effective and relevant to the college curriculum offer.
One of the challenges was to set up the system using Shibboleth which took some time as there were a number of issues which needed to be resolved. However, the college has just moved to, and launched, its new Moodle VLE and this seemed like a good opportunity to ensure that both staff and students had an integrated system that was simple to use and available any time, any where.
Solution
The college use subject librarians who work closely with teaching staff to identify resource requirements. The subject librarians then try to match the online resources available to the individual requirements of the lecturer/teacher. Individual members of staff also contact the library if they have identified resources and these are then made available. The college library has a fixed limited budget and needs to focus its resource provision, purchasing those resources that will be used most effectively.
One of the attractions of the resources offered via JISC and JISC Collections is that there are a number of free, quality, resources available and these can easily be made available to staff and students.
Another reason for using the service was that all our online resources – not just from JISC Collections – where in one place on Moodle and can be accessed remotely.
The JISC Regional support staff have also been very supportive and helped with the integration of the systems into the new college Moodle VLE.
At the start of the 2009/10 academic year in September, the library will be introducing its online resources including freely available e-books from the e-books for FE project as part of the induction programme.
Impact on the learning provider
The service is cost effective and all the details for example licensing are dealt with by JISC Collections which saves the college staff a great deal of time negotiating with individual providers.
Online resources found through JISC Collections’ are now becoming integrated into college provision and it is hoped to make this widely available during the 2009/10 academic year.
Impact on the learner
Learners are able to access a range of quality resources at times and locations to suit their individual needs.
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‘The introduction of the virtual resources has moved the walls of the library out into the community and the workplace allowing students to access a range of quality resources when it suits them best, not when we want to provide it’
Barry Jones Head of ILS |
Business studies in particular use a system called FAME which is a database that contains information regarding companies in the UK and Ireland for their research projects. Since its introduction the college finance department have also used it for credit risk assessment purposes.
Learners progressing onto Higher Education are now able to familiarise themselves with the resources and systems they will have available when they move on.
Key messages
- Learners are able to access a range of quality resources at times and locations to suit their individual needs
- The service is cost effective and all the details for example licensing are dealt with by JISC Collections which saves the college staff a great deal of time
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In comparison to use by Higher Education institutions, there is a disparity of access to technology and inconsistent use of online resources by FE colleges. There is a high level of demand for online materials, notably e-books from students and their teachers in Further Education however, FE colleges struggle to afford and make progress. This is because although FE colleges may have high numbers of users, the diversity in the courses, subjects, levels and types of learners means that an e-book, even a core textbook, is likely to have a low usage.
The e-books for FE Project aims to respond to this demand and provide Further Education colleges in the UK with access to a Core Collection of e-books on a platform, free of charge for five years. Through the project, JISC Collections has built up strong relationships with FE colleges to achieve a greater understanding of the priorities from the sector for online resources and the issues surrounding their adoption.
JISC Collections |
Further information
JISC Collections
St Helens College