Open University Blogs

     

The Open University’s Open2.net blog portal is a wealth of information and news on a huge range of subjects. Posts are topical, current and written by OU lecturing/teaching staff.

There are also links back to BBC OU programmes (some are even hosted on the BBC iPlayer if you missed them), with upcoming show lists and some free learning resources available.

Get Out and About - Prestatyn Walking Fesitval 9th-11th May

See more of your local area and keep fit at the same time with this years Prestatyn Walking Festival. Graded walks to suit all ages - see the remains of Roman Britain, take part in a 007 themed walk or try the three hills challenge. The ‘Healthy Prestatyn’ initiative site also provides information on walking routes in the town for everyone to enjoy.

Read more about this and other organised walks throughout the UK in the Guardian Travel section.

Find out more about this and other outdoor education activities in the Library at shelf numbers 372 and 796

New Intute Guides Online

Eight new Intute Subject Booklets have been published this month, each providing a “taster” of the Internet resources that can be found by using Intute. They can be downloaded directly from the site or viewed as a PDF.

The new subject include:

Environmental Science
Materials Engineering
Film and Theatre
Philosophy
Education
Olympic Studies
Biological Sciences
Pregnancy and Childbirth

Over 24 booklets have been published by Intute in recent years, and you are welcome to copy, re-purpose and distribute the printed or electronic versions for non-profit, educational use with suitable attribution, as the work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.

 

Social Policy and Welfare Resources

 

What services are available? Check out the Dept. of Work and Pensions.

Intute host excellent tutorials, resources and links for Social Studies, which are freely available to students.

The British Library also provide a fantastic list organisations and freely available resources on the Internet for Social Welfare as part of its 21citizen.org.uk  set of pages (it also highlights resources that are only available in the library itself).  

      

The National Archives also has a section on the start of the Welfare Reforms in 1906 and breaks down the topics by group - older people, young people and working people. This part of a wider project called The Learning Curve, which enriches British historical research.  

Homeless Resource Centre (US) provides over 2000 articles and research papers in their Knowledge Base Centre.

Find a good basic Introduction to Social Policy provided by the Robert Gordon University.

The Higher Education Academy has a dedicated resource and links list for Social Policy & Social Work. This includes specific topics, organisations and learning approaches.  

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation supports programmes of research and development in housing, social care and social policy. Offers several hundred research summaries and information on publications and research programmes. It also has a useful links section to other similar organisations.

Find out more about this subject in the Library at shelf number 361.3