ebooks for FE workshop: Project overview

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e-books for FE workshop Project overview
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Why e-books?

• Why? There is a demand for e-books from students
  and their teachers in Further Education which is
  not being met.
• The e-books for FE project aims to help colleges
  serve their diverse community of learners by
  providing
• them with a critical mass of relevant e-books.  
• Device independent-access via PC and mobile
  devices
• 24/7 access One of the main attractions of
  e-books is that they can be accessed 24/7. The
  e-books in the project can be accessed remotely,
  clear benefits for distance learners, part time
  students or people who simply prefer not to go to
  the campus to read material.
• Personalisation-users are about to comment upon,
  tag and link to other resources direct from the
  e-book.

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• Provide 2990 e-book titles
• Unlimited concurrent access
• Access to the ebrary e-books platform,
• for five years, free of charge.
• The e-books will be made available
• under the JISC model licence.
• e.g. Staff and students can incorporate parts in
  teaching learning materials whether electronic or
  paper. This includes course packs, presentations,
  VLEs, mobile devices, project work.

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The Titles

• The Core Collection contains e-books from a
  variety of publishers, including Heinemann,
  Hodder Stoughton, Blackwell, A C Black,
  Springer. The e-books available cover subjects as
  diverse as Fashion Design and Software
  Engineering, Heath and Social Care and Automobile
  Electronics, Beauty Therapy and Practical
  Lambing. http//site.ebrary.com/lib/jiscfe
• The e-books in the Core Collection support taught
  course students in a broad range of subject areas
  
• Arts and Humanities, Business Management and
  General, Education Childcare, Health Life
  Sciences, ICT, Literature Literary Studies,
  Travel Tourism, Key Skills inc Maths, Science
  Engineering, Social Sciences and Vocational.
• A full list of titles can now be found on the
  JISC Collections website or in the e-books
  licence.

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How did we choose these titles?

• Initial dialogue with FE Colleges in May 2008, to
  establish demand, levels of current take up and
  priorities.
• Briefing meeting with publishers and suppliers to
  tell them your needs
• Invitation to Tender, with very strict
  requirements and emphasis on FE relevance
• Community Consultation
• 3 week consultation, promoted through the RSCS
  and via the e-books for FE, COfHE and JISC
  mailing lists. 80,000 individual votes,
  demonstrates demand for this project.
• Excellent spread across JISC bands and subject
  categories. Significantly more interest in the
  vocational category. What you asked for!
• Clear demand for vocational titles
• High cost titles e.g., Electrical Installations
  Calculations Volume 1 7e, The Building
  Regulations, BTEC National Beauty Therapy.
• If the titles were not ranked then they are not
  included
• Catered for smaller and specialist colleges

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Who will have access

• Every FE college in the UK
• How do we define FE college?
• The majority of funding for this project is
  provided by the Learning Skills Council and
  therefore only FE institutions may subscribe.
• However students registered at FE institution but
  accessing the e-books at a University can access
  the e-books.
• Teachers and library staff responsible for these
  registered students may also access the e-books.
• Therefore, if an HE institution is undertaking an
  FE course on behalf of an FE institution, the
  students and teachers of those students, can
  access the e-books catalogue.
• If in doubt please contact Anna Vernon
  a.vernon_at_jisc.ac.uk

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Equity of access Extending access to your
library

• e-books can have disproportionate benefits for
  learners with disabilities and students working
  from home
• Why are e-books important for inclusion?
• People with a range of access needs find
  traditional text books difficult. Literacy issues
  might affect people with low reading ages, people
  working in a second language or people with
  specific learning difficulties. Books may be
  physically difficult to manipulate for some users
  and for others the text size and contrast will
  present barriers. Books in electronic format may
  allow users to
• personalise and adapt the text size and colour
• have the text read aloud by synthetic speech
• have instant access to referencing tools such as
  dictionaries
• copy/paste text into notes, reducing the physical
  demand of typing.
• More information on user access needs
• Simulating different disabilities
  www.techdis.ac.uk/simdis
• Short video clip on e-books/inclusion -
  http//tinyurl.com/ebookvideo

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Making the most of your digital library

• I would like you promote the collection,
  encourage use in VLEs, library catalogues etc.
  so they are used to their full potential.
• e-books should be treated as a raw material to be
  exploited alongside a variety of other resources-
  however and WHEREVER learners want to learn.
• e-books and learning technologies should not just
  be limited to a small group of enthusiasts
• Opportunity for the FE sector to shape the
  provision of e-resources and to go beyond
  providing handouts to creating a dynamic
  environment where students can personalise,
  archive, tag annotate and share content.

The main challenge for the project will be
getting the e-books used.
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Tools to help

• MARC records
• The MARC cataloguing records for the Core
  Collection have been checked and will be made
  freely available. JISC Collections recommends
  that all Libraries incorporate all the MARC
  records into their catalogues and provide direct
  links from the catalogue and VLE as it has been
  shown in several studies that this is essential
  in raising awareness of the availability of the
  e-books and encouraging use by students.
• Video exemplars
• Teachers are creating videos to demonstrate how
  the Core Collections can be used, classes in
  Moodle using ebooks across 3 subject areas
• Promotional Material
• Leaflets, presentations, discussion forums.
• Functionality
• A range of training materials are available for
  subscribing institutions on the ebrary website.
• Access Management
• JISC Access Management outreach team there to
  help
• http//www.jisc.ac.uk/federation.html

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How do I sign up?

• JISC Collections catalogue http//www.jisc-collec
  tions.ac.uk/catalogue/ebooksforfe/how_to_subscribe
  
• Complete and sign the e-books for FE licence and
  acceptance of sub licence form and send to the
  JISC Collections helpdesk.
• Ebrary will contact you

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The future

• Exploring alternative business models for e-books
  in FE.
• Student purchase,
• Usage statistics
• You can download and view your institutional
  usage statistics
• From May I will monitor the usage of the e-books,
  looking at trends across colleges, discipline
  areas, and e-book titles.
• e-select framework agreement
• In addition to the centrally purchased
  collections, colleges will be able to locally
  purchase additional e-book titles through the
  e-select framework agreement. Assessors from FE
  colleges will evaluate and rank the e-books
  submitted for inclusion on the following
  criteria
• Relevance to qualifications taken in FE
• Demonstrable discounts for FE colleges

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15 minutes, brainstorming session

• What are the barriers to e-books and e-resources
  in your institution?
• Please write down at least 2 barriers at your
  college, e.g.
• TECHNOLOGY -robustness of VLEs, costs of
  software, broadband speed?
• STUDENT DEMAND- not enough students/teachers are
  asking for them
• DISCOVERABLITY How will students find them if
  they are not on the shelves
• ACCESS MANAGEMENT- We havent implemented
  Shibboleth, Open Athens etc
• TEACHING STYLES NOT SUITED TO e-provision- IT not
  part of the process
• ATTITUDES- Teaching staff, colleagues scared of
  technology

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Breakout Groups

• Now swap cards with another table.
• Write your responses to the issues on the cards
• Prioritise the issues on the cards on your table
• Any recommendations for JISC Collections/JISC on
  what they could do to assist in these issues
  centrally?

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What would need to happen to overcome the
barriers to e-books?

• Easier to discover
• New innovative format not based on traditional
  print
• Reading devices
• Interoperable standards, open source tools to
  allow integration into VLEs etc
• More help for colleges to implement
  Shibboleth/Federated Access Management
• More relevant e-books available
• Training for teaching staff