British Education Index is a well-respected database that students and professionals use to search for literature. It is UK based, but international in scope. It covers all aspects of education from pre-school through to higher education, so is useful for those studying early years, childhood, primary, secondary and further education, plus special educational needs.

It is an indexing database so provides references and abstracts, but also links to the complete article if CCCU has a subscription.

• Go to LibrarySearch 
  
  
• Log in using your CCCU username and password. If you are away from campus, or connecting with your own device over Wi-Fi, you will need to include @canterbury.ac.uk after your CCCU username.
  
  
• Select Find Databases, then click on B, finally click on the link to British Education Index to open it in a new tab.

Write your search terms (keywords) into the search box to find results, which will then appear in a list with each record showing the title, author(s), publication details (e.g. journal name and date), and Subjects. Click on the title of a reference to read an abstract. Select Full Text Finder to link to the full text if it is available.

The Advanced Search enables you add and combine search terms more easily and to limit results by publication type, document type (e.g. case study or literature review), educational level and age level. The Thesaurus function enables you to select the best subject term that the database uses (e.g. browse for Literacy testing and you are told to use Reading ability testing).

See the British Education Index Information page for searching tips and information about other functions, such as saving searches, using folders and saving, printing, emailing and exporting search results.

Try searching British Education Index by following the steps outlined below. You will practice using some of the most common functions and be ready to search for information for your assignments.

1. Search for the topic classroom environment. How many results do you find?
   
   
2. Find an interesting article from your results list and see if you can access the full-text of the the article.
   
   
3. Click on Advanced search and in the second box down, next to the word AND, add the search term engagement. Scroll down to the search options and under Publication date limit from 2010 to 2020, and under Publication type limit to Academic Journal. Click on search. How many results do you have now?
   
   
4. Reflect on the type of information appearing in your search. How will you use this information in your assignments? How could you make your search more specific?

You may want to search other similar education databases that you can find via LibrarySearch: Australian Education Index; ERIC (Education Resources Information Center); Educational Administration Abstracts; Teacher Reference Center; Bloomsbury Education and Childhood Studies; and Child Development and Adolescent Studies.

After you have accessed British Education Index, go to Help and search for accessibility or go directly to the EBSCO support information.

Your Learning and Research Librarian will be able to help you make the best use of online resources. For detailed guidance, book a tutorial via the Learning Skills Hub.