Education

One-to-one or small group help: If you need help or advice on finding information for your study or research in Education, and you have had a look at the help provided on these pages or in our paper guides, then you are welcome to get in touch and book an appointment with one of the Education Subject Librarians, Hazel Rothera and Ruth Dryden - contact details in the box on the right. For quick queries, you can always come to the Enquiry Desk when Harcourt Hill Library is open.

Off-campus? Here's our help specifically for distance learners and off-campus students.

Need help using our Electronic Library?Download our Guide (Word or PDF), then if still stuck contact us.

Having trouble getting into e-journals off-campus? Try our tutorial.. (Powerpoint 2.5 MB)

What are databases?

• British Education Index -  provides references to 350 British and selected European English language journals in the field of education and training. The database also provides limited coverage of books, reports and conference literature.
• Education Research Complete -full text database covering scholarly research and information relating to all areas and levels of education in the UK and internationally. The database provides indexing and abstracts for more than 1,840 journals, as well as full text for more than 950 journals.
• Education-Line- contains current education research and conference papers collected by Leeds University. The papers are predominantly British with some international coverage.
• ERIC - American based education database sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. ERIC includes coverage of journal articles, conferences, and books.
• Other useful databases for related areas (Psychology and Child Development, Management, Social Sciences, General including newspapers)

All the above databases are available to Brookes staff and students from on and off campus. These databases are password controlled, especially when are accessing from off campus. All the databases listed are controlled by the Athens password system. Please see the library's Athens guide for further details.

Help with searching databases

Several thousand education journals are available full text online:

• Browse a subject list of education journals for further details.
• View a complete list of all our electronic journals from the A-to-Z e-journals service. - type your journal title (not an article title or topic) in the Find box
• Education Research Complete is an online package of over 1800 education journals - about half of which are full-text - which you can browse, or search like a database.
• Search the Library Catalogue for details of all our print and online journals. Enter the journal title (not an article title!) into the keyword or title search box, and select Electronic & Printed Journals Catalogue from the Collection list.
• The Catalogue does not provide information about individual articles from journals. You will need to use a database to find articles on a particular topic - see the Databases list above.
• E-journals require a password if you are off campus (usually, but not always, your Athens username and password).

Follow the instructions below or download our E-books for Education students guide (Word or PDF)

• First: go to the Brookes Library home page and log in to Athens

• To look up a specific e-book or find e-books on a topic, use the Library Catalogue. In Basic Search, pull down the "Collection" menu and choose Electronic Books Catalogue. Then just search as you would for an ordinary printed book.
• E-books on the Catalogue show a floppy disk icon instead of a book icon, and they say [electronic resource] after the title. (To see an example, try Janet Moyles' Beginning teaching, beginning learning)
• If the e-book you want comes up, click on the On and off campus access link as appropriate.

• To browse our e-books: come out of the Catalogue, go to the Library home page and click on E-books in the Quick Links. The Education-related e-books are all in the first two packages listed, MyiLibrary and Dawsonera.
• Click on either package to connect to it: for Dawsonera you will get an extra login screen where you have to click on the "Login" button next to "Athens login" (don't try to use the "Direct login" boxes underneath, which won't work).

• Browsing MyiLibrary: on the MyiLibrary home page, under All Subjects click on SEE ALL next to Education.
• Browsing Dawsonera: on the Dawsonera home page, type "education" in the Quick Search box; or go to Advanced Search and under Subject select SOCIAL SCIENCES - Education.

• If you want to search for a specific topic both packages have Quick Search and Advanced Search options.

• Once you have found the book you want: click Read online (in Dawsonera) or Open now (in MyiLibrary). Then use the Contents menu on the left hand side, or the Next and Previous page buttons on each page.

• For help with searching, printing (restricted to a few pages), making notes and other features, use the Help buttons at the top of the screen.

• Curriculum and individual subject areas
• Early Years
• Further Education
• Government, policy and standards
• Higher Education
• Primary Education
• Secondary Education
• Schools and teaching

Early Childhood Studies/Early Years (Word document)

Education: a guide to finding information (Word document)

Education: a guide to finding journals and journal articles (Word document)

Education: a guide to finding Statistics

School Experience Centre (SEC)

Getting started - finding the things on your reading list

Further research - finding more information

EndNote: to help you manage your references and write your bibliography