e-books for FE
A collection of free e-books for all UK further education colleges (accessed through the ProQuest Ebook Central platform)
Save money and help learners succeed with access to free, curriculum-relevant e-books covering A-level, BTEC and vocational courses plus GCSE English and maths.
To provide the best service to students, FE colleges need to provide up to date textbooks across a range of subject areas, but FE funding challenges can make this difficult.
Our e-books for FE service helps solve the problem.
We offer free access to a collection of relevant, curriculum-mapped taught course e-books – covering not only BTEC, A-Level, NVQ/SVQ and Cache courses, but also GCSE, WJEC and Highers English and maths.
Benefits for FE colleges
- Save money by accessing e-books for free - This service is free at the point of use for FE colleges, so they can save money compared to the cost of buying digital or print textbooks by other means.
- Get unlimited access - Staff and students can access an unlimited number of e-books within the collection, concurrently, an unlimited number of times. This means learners aren’t constrained by usage limits.
- Save time by accessing e-books easily - Once your institution has signed an agreement with Jisc Collections, students and teachers can access content and e-books from anywhere, via your usual institutional login on Ebook Central.
- Easy to use - The online platform means students and teachers can support learning by linking to e-books directly from within their VLE.
Help learners succeed
The e-books we offer can help students to succeed with their learning.
This is because the e-books:
- Are curriculum-mapped to the requirements of vocational, A-level and GCSE qualifications, and selected with the support of the FE community
- Are up to date, with collections continuously supplemented and refreshed to reflect changes in curricula and to keep content current. The content is licensed in close consultation with the FE community
- Cover a wide range of subjects; from business to psychology, construction to engineering, sport to health and social care. The collection also includes GCSE English and maths textbooks and workbooks – helping support the requirement for students to resit these subjects if they haven’t achieved a grade 4 at GCSE
- Allow concurrent access, so students can always access a copy of a textbook in the collection, at the point of need, without having to wait for another student to finish with it
- Offer access to learning, helping students develop and improve digital skills
- Can be accessed from anywhere; on laptops, tablet devices and smartphones
Make the most of this resource off campus
If you need to support your A-level or vocational students to carry on learning from home, e-books for FE enables you to provide online access to over 500 core curriculum matched titles.
These include GCSE English and maths books likely to be vital to allowing many FE students to continue with their studies.
The eBook Central platform allows tutors to point students to specific pages and to embed direct links into your VLE or other online platforms, whilst the ability to cite resources, take notes and share bookmarks are all designed to aid collaboration and online learning.
- If you're already signed up to e-books for FE, make sure your curriculum leads are aware of which titles are available to support vocational and A-level study
- If not, speak to your relationship manager to get signed up
- To find out exactly what titles are available, access the full list via our support site
Support using the service
The support site has different areas for librarians and teachers, each packed with resources to help users to get the most out of the collections. Guides include how to download MARC records, how to use Ebook Central®, and tips for embedding e-books for FE into the curriculum.
The site also includes lists of all the included e-books broken down into subject areas. For information regarding titles coming out of licence this year and new titles available, please see the full e-book list.