13 April 2020
Jisc is uniting service providers to deliver free resources to the further education (FE) sector during the Covid-19 crisis. Teachers and learners can benefit from e-books, vocational learning resources, virtual reality resources, and ‘home use’ licences for personal devices.
Jisc has collaborated with publishers including ProQuest, Pearson, Bloomsbury, Cengage, Hodder, and Taylor & Francis to bring an additional 66 titles to Jisc’s e-books for FE collection, which already held in excess of 500 e-books. Resources cover GCSE English and maths, a range of A-level subjects, and vocational qualifications from levels 1 to 3. They are freely available to Jisc members at more than 300 UK further education institutions. Digital e-textbook platform Kortext has also extended its free student textbook programme (FSTP) initiative to FE colleges supporting higher education learners.
In addition, the subscription fees for Jisc’s vocational learning resources have been lifted until 31 July 2020, supporting learners studying construction, digital and IT, education and childcare, health and social care, and hairdressing. The Vogue archive for FE is also available from licence subscriptions manager.
Adobe has made temporary ‘home use’ licences available for FE learners and staff. These give access to Creative Cloud products via personal computers, laptops and mobile devices, and are available for free until 31 May 2020.
Publishers are invited to complete Jisc’s online survey, which seeks to capture the measures that content and service providers have put in place or plan to implement. The survey includes questions on provision for off-campus access and whether publishers intend to roll out extended trials or grace periods. Responses are available on the Covid-19 section of the Jisc website and will be updated daily.