Welcome to the September issue of our e-books for FE newsletter. August was an exceptionally difficult time for school leavers, and the academic year ahead will look like no other. Here at Jisc we are committed to supporting library services, teaching staff and students in the altered learning environment, and to learn from members how to improve that support.

Win a £30 National Book Token

Congratulations to West College Scotland, winners of the August book token!

In answer to the question “How are you planning to embed our digital resources into your remote learning strategy in the new term?” they responded: “We’ve been creating digital resource and subject guides on Wakelet that include e-books for FE and permalinks to e-books on the platform. We can then embed these guides into Moodle and MS Teams.”

The link to the WCS subject guides is: https://wakelet.com/wake/B18HbdQOv5Hz0rmkfP2kN

The link to WCS digital resources is: https://wakelet.com/wake/VX3hkD-dY8wdxlAmROX2F

Each month we will ask a question relating to our digital resources, whether e-books or Virtual Learning Resources, and invite you to respond via Twitter. The winner, chosen at random, will receive a £30 National Book Token.

The question for September is:

“How are you promoting your resources to students and keeping them engaged with digital learning content?”

You must include @ebooksforfe and @fe_jisc in your Tweets so that we see them. Feel free to thread multiple Tweets together, if your response requires it.

Deadline: 30 September.

The winner will be announced in the October newsletter. Good luck!

Webinar clinics

The next webinar clinic will be on Wednesday 30 September from 2-3 pm, on the theme of Digital Skills. The three areas we will cover are as follows:

E-books and mobile devices

Given the requirements for off-campus learning, we will be discussing the implications and practicalities of accessing e-books for FE on mobile devices, the issue of digital exclusion, and how services are responding.

Digital Toolkit

We’ll be introducing the Digital learning resources in FE teaching toolkit and looking at how it can help and support teaching practitioners using digital resources in online learning.

Vocational Learning Resources

We will be giving an overview of our Vocational Learning Resources, outlining the new pricing model, and answering any questions you might have about using this service.

The clinic can be accessed at: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/training/e-books-for-fe-online-clinic

The recording of the August webinar (‘JUSP supporting FE, 26 August 2020’) is now available at the same site, plus a transcript of the session in Word.

For further information about JUSP (Journal Usage Statistics Portal) please visit: https://jusp.jisc.ac.uk/

To subscribe to JUSP, you can do so via the Licence Subscriptions Manager at the following link: https://subscriptionsmanager.jisc.ac.uk/catalogue/992

Report: ‘Shaping the digital future of FE and skills’

In the next few days, Jisc will be publishing a report entitled ‘Shaping the digital future of FE and skills’ (both in summary and in full) on this dedicated web site: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/shaping-the-digital-future-of-fe-and-skills

This is a significant piece of work produced in collaboration with the Association of Colleges. A link to the report will also be shared via the e-books for FE Jiscmail list, and advertised on this blog and via Twitter.

Launch of effective online teaching discovery tool question set

To address the challenges of Covid-19 and blended learning delivery, Jisc has developed a new question set in the ‘building digital capabilities’ discovery tool which launched this week. The question set, aimed at teaching staff, provides an opportunity for staff to reflect on their confidence and capabilities to plan, design, deliver and assess online learning.

The discovery tool, which can be used by library staff, teaching staff and students, is available here: https://digitalcapability.jisc.ac.uk/our-service/discovery-tool/

Support site update

The support site has now been updated to include the new titles which became active on 1 September, including updated links to the collection spreadsheet and the content of the Subject Areas page: https://support.ebooksforfe.jisc.ac.uk/index.php/guides/subject-areas-guide/

Top 20 users in August 2020

Well done to all organisations who reached a spot in the top 20.

Rank	Organisation	User Sessions
1	Brighton, Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College	386
2	King Edward VI College, Stourbridge	281
3	Sparsholt College	265
4	Varndean College	217
5	South & City College Birmingham	187
6	Barton Peveril College	166
7	Northampton College	164
8	Bradford College	130
9	University of the Highlands and Islands	123
10	Truro and Penwith College	122
11	Farnborough Sixth Form College	107
12	Fife College	106
13	Summit Learning Trust	103
14	Dundee and Angus College	100
15	Kirklees College	97
16	Long Road Sixth Form College	93
17	Colchester Sixth Form College	86
18	Burton & South Derbyshire College	84
19	Holy Cross College	80
20	City of Glasgow College	79

Mergers: If your organisation has recently merged with another, ProQuest may not have the most current merger information and your merger may not be reflected in the usage data. Please check with ProQuest and request that they update your account to reflect the merger. Their e-book support contact address is: ebooksupport@proquest.com

Top 20 titles in August 2020

Rank	Title	User sessions
1	CACHE Level 3 Technical Extended Diploma in Health and Social Care	208
2	CACHE Level 2 Diploma for the Early Years Practitioner	198
3	OCR A Level Law Book 2	188
4	Law: OCR AS/A Level	183
5	BTEC Level 3 Nationals 2016 Applied Science Student Book 2	168
6	Cache Level 3 Child Care and Education : Early Years Educator	155
7	US Government and Politics for A-Level Fifth Edition	149
8	Global Politics for A-Level	147
9	Civil Rights and Race Relations in the USA 1850-2009	125
10	AQA A-level Biology 1: For A-level Year 1 and AS	122
11	AQA A-Level Economics, Fourth Edition	121
12	BTEC Level 3 National Health and Social Care: Student Book 1	115
13	Care in Practice Higher: Fourth Edition	101
14	Pearson Edexcel A Level Politics	93
15	CACHE Level 3 Early Years Educator: for the Work-Based Learner	91
16	AQA A-level Physics Year 1: For A-level Year 1 and AS	84
17	AQA A-Level Geography: For A-level and AS – Fourth Edition	82
18	OCR Psychology for A Level Book 1	79
19	Edexcel Psychology for A Level Book 1	78
20	BTEC National Applied Psychology Student Book	74

Support queries

Email: content.feandskills@jisc.ac.uk
Website: https://support.ebooksforfe.jisc.ac.uk/