The Brookes Virtual course 'A guide to business and economics databases'

How do I get on to it?

Business students need a huge variety of information for their coursework, much of which is available electronically these days both on and off campus. The Brookes Virtual Learning Course "A guide to Business and Economics databases" helps you to sort out what to use and when. It covers how to get the best from the huge journals databases to which we have access; using Factiva to find company, industry, and market news; how to find company, market and industry analysis in stockbroker reports in Investext; company accounts and analysis and share prices using Fame, Orbis and Thomson One Banker; market research reports in Mintel and Euromonitor.

You can register yourself to get on to this course. It is purely voluntary, and your performance is not marked or assessed in any way. We think that it is a good way to learn how to use electronic databases because you can connect to the databases to do the exercises live, explore anything of interest and progress at your own pace.

Who should do it?

Anyone who wants a refresher on how databases work. They change all the time! Most new Business undergraduates are required to undertake an assessed version of this course called "Sourcing information", but may like to join the voluntary version to keep themselves updated.

All full time and some part time Postgraduates have taught sessions on Business databases, that cover exactly the same ground, timetabled into their course and may want to do this course as a refresher, but otherwise do not need it. Postgraduates who are not timetabled for a Business database session should undertake it.

This course covers the same ground as the training sessions 'Business databases' listed on the Training page, so if you find you really would prefer a taught session, then book, but note that they only take place at the beginning of Semester.

Because it is a secure environment, database connections and password details, which often change, will always be available on the Brookes Virtual course, so why not stay registered on it for your entire time here?

How do I get on to it?

Full instructions are available from the links below which can be downloaded as Word documents or pdfs:

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/business/Self registration on Brookes Virtual CE6.doc

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/business/Self registration on Brookes Virtual CE6.pd