Teaching and Learning > DISCOURSE
Supporting Philosophical and Religious Studies: Striving to Deliver High Quality Resources to the UK Academic and Research Community
Author: Brian Mitchell
Journal Title: Discourse: Learning and Teaching in Philosophical and Religious Studies
ISSN: 2040-3674
ISSN-L:
Volume: 8
Number: 2
Start page: 17
End page: 26
Return to vol. 8 no. 2 index page
JISC Collections was established by the UK higher and further education funding councils in 2006 to negotiate at a national level with publishers and owners of digital content on behalf of the academic and research community.
Originally operating within the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC), JISC Collections is now a limited company that mutually trades with its members—all higher and further education institutions, and research councils that receive direct funding from the UK higher and further education funding councils.
A JISC-funded service, JISC Collections also provides a service for an expanding range of affiliate members—organisations in the UK and overseas which qualify for membership through their engagement in life-long learning, for example schools and museums. This article will:
- outline the licensing activities which JISC Collections undertakes on behalf of universities, colleges and research councils in the UK.
- provide an overview of the portfolio of online resources available for philosophical and religious studies.
- illustrate how these online resources can be used to enrich education and research.
Introduction to what JISC Collections does
To help teaching staff, researchers and students enjoy the full benefits of e-learning and e-research, JISC Collections licences an extensive collection of high-quality online resources. JISC Collections’ mission is to support UK education and research by delivering affordable, relevant and sustainable online content.
JISC Collections provides its members with a catalogue of free and subscription-based online resources such as journals, e-books, full text databases, digital images, historical records, online film, reference resources and geospatial data. Many of these resources are available through your institutional library/learning resource centre. Core to the service provided by JISC Collections is the quality evaluation of online resources. JISC Collections always strives to widen accessibility to high quality online resources, to save its members time and money and to evolve licensing in line with members’ needs and the digital environment.
Our portfolio of resources available for philosophical and religious studies
The JISC Collections UK National Academic Archive includes an expanding range of specially selected archive resources which are available in perpetuity to UK higher and further education institutions and research councils. This important programme is part of JISC Collections’ ongoing commitment to widening access to essential material across the subject spectrum. The majority of these archives are available completely free of charge to institutions. The UK National Academic Archive offers unrivalled online access to a vast range of journals, historical map data, newspapers, periodicals, and books published between 1473 and 2006. Many of the original works included in the archive resources are very rare and/or fragile. However, an unlimited number of users at institutions across the UK can now access these essential materials, alongside a range of other resources, simultaneously—from wherever they are, and whenever is convenient.
22 digital archives are currently available in this initiative, with six new archives being added to the UK National Academic Archive since March 2008. The following new archives will be of interest to those teaching and researching in philosophical and religious studies:
- Brill Journal Archive Online—this includes over 50,000 articles from more than 80 journals published by Brill before 2000. The archive is available free of charge to subscribing
- British Periodicals Collections I and II—these collections comprise nearly 6.1 million pages from over 460 journals published from 1681 to 1939. These collections are available free of charge to subscribing institutions.
- The Burney Collection—this is a collection of 17th and 18th century newspapers published in England, Ireland and Scotland that also includes a selection of early papers from British colonies in the Americas and Asia. The resource is available free of charge to subscribing institutions.
- Periodicals Archive Online: JISC Collections Selection—this archive provides access to over 288,000 articles from a subset of 80 full-text journal backfiles published between 1891 and 2000, from the Periodicals Archive Online collection. The resource is available free of charge to subscribing institutions.
Other archives that form our UK National Academic Archive, which will be of interest to philosophical and religious studies, include:
- Early English Books Online (EEBO)—the content has been purchased by JISC in perpetuity, although a fee applies for access via the publisher’s server.
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO)—the content has been purchased by JISC in perpetuity, although a fee applies for access via the publisher’s server.
- Oxford Journals Archive—JISC’s purchase of the content on behalf of the UK academic community means that institutions can benefit from free access until at least July 31st 2011, via the publisher’s server.
- 19th Century UK Periodicals Online, Series 1—the content has been purchased by JISC Collections in perpetuity, although a fee applies for access via the publisher’s server.
- 18th-20th Century House of Commons Parliamentary Papers—over 300 years of official parliamentary records can now be cross-searched on a single platform. Funding from JISC as part of its Digitisation Programme for the 18th Century Parliamentary Papers and JISC Collections’ purchase of the 19th and 20th Century House of Commons Parliamentary Papers means that institutions can benefit from free access to these resources.
To find out more about the JISC Collections UK National Academic Archive, please visit http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/archives.
Other free-of-charge online resources
JISC and JISC Collections fund a number of other agreements which are available free of charge to the JISC community.
- Film & Sound Online—this database contains the Logic Lane series of films which cover philosophy.
- Jorum—this is a free online repository service for teaching and support staff in UK further and higher education institutions, helping to build a community for the sharing, reuse and repurposing of learning and teaching materials.
- NewsFilm Online—this is a collection of over 3,000 hours of television news and cinema newsreels taken from the ITN/Reuters archive spanning the 20th century. Funded by JISC, as part of its Digitisation Programme, content is free to higher and further education subscribers until July 2012.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy—institutions have free access to authoritative peer-reviewed material to support those studying philosophy.
Subscription-based online resources
Here are some of the resources which JISC Collections has licensed on behalf of the UK academic community that are relevant for philosophical and religious studies.
- Academic OneFile—a journal database designed to fit the specific needs of an academic library by providing students, academic staff and researchers with mostly peer-reviewed, full-text articles with minimal embargo periods.
- ACLS Humanities E-Book—a fully cross-searchable and growing collection of over 2,200 high quality full-text books in the humanities, which are recommended and reviewed by humanities scholars, based on their continuing relevance to teaching and research.
- Cambridge Companions Online—this is the electronic version of the Cambridge Companions series.
- Credo Reference—this is an online reference service providing access to the full-text of dictionaries, bilinguals, thesauri, encyclopaedias, quotations and atlases, plus a wide range of subject-specific scholarly titles.
- Education Image Gallery—this resource is a selection of 50,000 copyright-cleared images from the renowned Getty Images® collections. By 2010 a further 10,000 images will be added to the collection.
- Electronic Enlightenment—this resource offers access to the web of correspondence between the greatest thinkers and writers of the 18th century and their families and friends, bankers and booksellers, patrons and publishers. Users can cross-search letters from nearly 6,000 writers, scientists, philosophers, politicians, political thinkers and others including Bentham, Hume, Kant and Voltaire.
- JSTOR—this is a digital archive collection of over 770 core multidisciplinary and discipline specific scholarly journals, some of which date back as far as the 17th century.
- The Literary Encyclopedia—this reference work provides detailed profiles of author, texts, and literary topics, primarily of literature originally written in English. The Encyclopedia lists more than 6,400 writers, philosophers and other persons of note.
- Oxford Dictionary of National Biography—this resource enables users to explore the lives of over 55,000 people worldwide who have shaped British history over the last 2,400 years.
- Oxford Islamic Studies Online—this resource promotes accurate and informed understanding of the Islamic world. It contains more than 3,000 reference articles, and covers subjects such as global Islamic history, people, politics, faith, concepts, tenets and practices, and culture.
- Oxford Reference Online—the Premium Collection combines rich and scholarly resources offered by acclaimed titles in the Oxford Companions series. It also offers a wide range of additional material such as maps, illustrations and timelines.
- Oxford Scholarship Online—this is a cross-searchable library containing the full text of over 2,500 Oxford books, which includes titles on philosophy and religion.
- Scran—this extensive educational image archive contains over 360,000 high quality images, video clips, sound files and over 3,000 packs to support research, learning and teaching across the curriculum.
- Taylor & Francis Online eBook Library—the Library
includes some 22,000 titles from the Taylor & Francis book publishing
programme.
Online journal agreements—NESLi2
NESLi2 is the UK’s national initiative for facilitating access to online journals on behalf of the higher and further education and research communities. Over 7,000 online journals are now available. NESLi2 is an ‘opt-in’ initiative, so libraries can review each of the agreements that JISC Collections’ appointed Negotiation Agent has negotiated and decide which ones they wish to join. The following NESLi2 agreements for 2009 will be of interest to philosophical and religious studies:
- Cambridge University Press
- Project MUSE
- Oxford University Press
- SAGE Publications
- Springer-Science and Business Media
- Wiley-Blackwell
Online journal agreements—NESLi2 SMP
The NELi2 Small and Medium Publishers programme extends the NESLi2 initiative to include online journals from small and medium sized publishers. NESLi2 SMP seeks to offer a broader range of journals from more publishers and facilitate access for staff, students and researchers to a broader range of online journals.
The following NESLi2 agreement for 2009 will be of interest to religious studies:
- Berg Publishers—the NESLi2 SMP offer includes the title Material Religion.
Getting the most out of the online resources which your library/learning resource centre subscribes to
The basis of all JISC Collections agreements is the JISC Model Licence and the NESLi2 Model Licence in the case of e-journals. The JISC Model License contains provisions which allow students and staff to make effective use of online resources for learning, teaching and research. For example:
- Provisions for unlimited, simultaneous user access, whether working from campus or from home.
- Distance learners also have access to the resources.
- Staff and students of the institution can incorporate extracts from the licensed resources in all types of teaching and learning materials whether electronic or paper. This includes course packs, PowerPoint presentations, VLEs (Virtual Learning Environments), dissertations, project work, etc. The only requirement for such use is usually that the material is properly cited.
- Staff can adapt materials to meet the special needs of students—e.g. in Braille format.
- To support research purposes staff and students can publicly display or present as part of their work at seminars, workshops or conferences.
Further details can be found in our Guide to the JISC Model Licence:
http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk/model_licence/coll_guide_jiscmodel.Copyright essentials
Free interactive copyright tools
JISC Collections has commissioned a number of copyright tools which are designed to help staff at institutions and schools understand copyright issues in the use of online resources.
Online copyright activity
The Online Copyright Activity tool helps institutions understand copyright issues in the use of online resources.
JISC CASPER
JISC Collections has been working with 20 projects funded by the JISC e-Learning Programme to explore the future of repurposing and sharing learning materials in education. The Copyright Advice and Support Project for Electronic Resources programme (CASPER) is providing advice and help on best practice to institutions that are repurposing online content and learning materials—both in terms of their own Intellectual Property but also in clearing third party rights—so that digital content can be used and re-used across the education sector. Our Interactive Copyright Tools help staff make sense of copyright as well as providing resources to manage rights.
Find out more about CASPER at http://jisc-casper.org.
Call for feedback from the academic and research community
JISC Collections is always keen to get feedback from the academic and research community on their experiences of using the online resources which we licence (whether good or bad), and how they are being embedded in teaching, learning and research. This feedback will be used to generate support materials such as case studies, podcasts, vidcasts, showreels and testimonials. If you would like to take part in these activities or if you would like further information, please contact Brian Mitchell at JISC Collections on 020 3006 6004 or b.mitchell@jisc.ac.uk.
How to find out more about JISC Collections
For more information on JISC Collections, the resources which we license or any of the issues raised in this article, please visit http://www.jisc-collections.ac.uk, or email collections@jisc.ac.uk with any specific enquiries.
Return to vol. 8 no. 2 index page
This page was originally on the website of The Subject Centre for Philosophical and Religious Studies. It was transfered here following the closure of the Subject Centre at the end of 2011.
