Times Higher Education

Times Higher Education is a weekly publication for both staff and students containing news, features, book reviews, and opinion pieces relating to Higher Education. The digital subscription also includes access to the World University Rankings, which measures institutional performance using data across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.

To access Times Higher Education online you will need to register using your University of Bedfordshire email address (not your personal email address). You will be asked to create a unique password and answer some brief questions about your affiliation with the University.

https://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/digital/times-high-ed/

Top DiSCOVER search terms in November

These were the most popular searches in DISCOVER last month:

ICT system shutdown between 20th January 2024 to 21st January 2024

ICT are going to be upgrading some core systems over the weekend of 20th - 21st January. This means that most of our systems will be unavailable during that time, including:

• library catalogue, including book renewals
• access to digital library resources including DISCOVER, ebooks, ejournals and databases
• Library PCs
• SID

Some key systems will keep working:

• email
• BREO
• Office 365
• university websites

ETHOS (Electronic Theses Online) unavailable

The British Library, who host ETHOS (Electronic Theses Online), have been the victim of a cyberattack and access to their websites including ETHOS is currently disrupted. 

Updates will be posted on their blog.

Top DISCOVER searches in October

These were the most popular searches in DISCOVER last month:

We are still confused about why you would search for DISCOVER when you are already in DISCOVER?

Fitch Connect downtime Saturday, 14th October

We've been warned that there will be downtime for essential maintenance for Fitch Connect this Saturday, 14th October, 13.30 - 17.30

VLEbooks downtime Sunday 8th October

We have had this notice of maintenance this Sunday on the VLEbooks platform:

Please be advised that on Sunday 8th October between 4pm & 7pm our technical teams will be completing essential works to VLebooks following the outage and performance issues on 2nd October.

We anticipate that VLebooks should be offline for approximately 1 hour during this period. Please be advised we are continuing to apply access restrictions which may impact a small number of users to refresh before access is granted. We anticipate following the weekend updates and investigation these restrictions will be removed and will confirm when these have fully lifted.

 

We apologise for this disruption and extend our thanks to customers and users for their patience.

Top DISCOVER searches in September

 These were the most popular searches run in DISCOVER in September:

XpertHR problems resolved

Access to XpertHR is now back to normal. Please let us know if you have any further problems.

IEEE Xplore downtime Friday 22 September 7pm - 9pm

We've been warned that on 22 September, IEEE Xplore will undergo scheduled maintenance from 19:00 PM - 21:00 PM GMT.  During this time, there will be periods when the website will be unavailable.

Credo Reference off-campus access problems

 The university's off-campus access to Credo Reference is currently not available. We are currently working with the provider to restore this access.

Credo Reference is still available on campus at https://search.credoreference.com/

IEEE Xplore - access back to normal

Access to IEEE Xplore is now restored, let us know at library.technical@beds.ac.uk if you have any further problems.

IEEE xplore temporarily unavailable

IEEE xplore is having some issues at the moment, hopefully they will have them fixed soon.

DISCOVER top search terms August 2023

These were the most popular search terms in DISCOVER in August:

XpertHR unavailable

We are currently having a problem authenticating to XpertHR

We are investigating and will get access restored as soon as we can.

Credo Reference platform update Saturday 19th August

Credo Reference will be getting a refresh next weekend -work will begin Saturday 19th August 2023, beginning 1pm BST and is anticipated to take about 24 hours, during which there may be access disruptions. Banners will be present on the platform with messaging to let you know what is happening during this time. The new platform should be available to all on Monday, 21st August.

If you would like to know more about how the new platform will look, there is a help guide here.

DISCOVER top search terms July 2023

These were the top searches in DISCOVER last month - if you know why people are typing "discover" into DISCOVER, please let us know!

IEEE Xplore downtime 22nd July 2pm - 6pm

We've been told that on Saturday, 22 July, IEEE Xplore will undergo scheduled maintenance from 2pm  - 6pm (BST). During this time, there will be periods when the website will be unavailable. 

POSTPONED - IT systems essential maintenance Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th August - disrupted access to Digital Library

Please be advised that this planned work has been postponed and will be rescheduled in due course (4/8/2023)

The university is planning IT maintenance on Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th August. During this time, only Office 365, email and Microsoft Teams will run as usual - all other systems will be affected. This includes BREO, DISCOVER, and access to digital library resources such as ebooks and ejournals. 

What are ICT doing?
We are upgrading networking equipment in our core server and storage infrastructure. This will require a weekend shutdown of University hosted systems.

When will this be?
Downtime: Saturday 5th August 2023 all day from 8:00am
At risk: Sunday 6th August 2023 all day until 5:00 pm

Library system maintenance 12th July 2023

We are going to be doing some work on the library system behind our library catalogue, book loans and renewals on Wednesday 12th July 2023 from 10.30am. Thursday 13th July will also be at risk.

During this time there will be no access to the library catalogue or to self issue/return/renewal of books.

Access to some digital library resources will be disrupted but DISCOVER and reading lists will not be affected and most digital library resources will be available via these routes.

Most popular DISCOVER searches in June

Here's what everyone was searching for in DISCOVER last month:

(Who searches "discover" in DISCOVER? what are they hoping to find?)

Discover interface upgrade

The library search engine, DISCOVER, is getting a shiny new upgrade this summer.  The upgrade will include a more intuitive interface, a visual search tool, and more ways to manage your documents.  You don’t need to do anything and all of the material in your folders will be moved over to the new interface once the upgrade happens (however, it is always a good idea to have a back-up!).

If you have any nested folders (sub-folders within folders) in your current DISCOVER account you will need to move any items in the sub-folder to the top-level folder, otherwise the items will not appear once the upgrade happens on 1^st August 2023. To do this, follow the instructions here.

If you have any queries about the upgrade you can email librarians@beds.ac.uk or library.technical@beds.ac.uk

Changes to login to library resources - 21st June

 What are the Library doing?

We are changing the account login screen for the Library Catalogue and access to digital resources. This will affect you if you want to reserve or renew books and if you want to access digital resources via our proxy server, i.e. resources with a URL beginning "0-"

When will this be done?

The change will take place on Wednesday 21st June at 10.00am.

 What will be affected?

It is anticipated that here will be no effect on services.

 Why are we doing this?

To allow integration with the University single sign-on system

 What do you need to do?

There is no need to take action.

 At log on you will see the following screen,

 

If you are a UoB student or member of staff, choose UoB Single Sign-On. Students can then login as usual with your registration number and password. Staff should now login with their network username rather than the library X-number as before.

If you are an external library user, i.e. not a student or member of staff, you will need to use the Library Login option, and use the same login details as before. 

If you do have any problems please let us know.

Most popular searches in DISCOVER in May

These were the most popular search terms used in DISCOVER last month:

29 people put the term "discover" into DISCOVER - who knows what they were hoping to find?

Password changing unavailable Wednesday 17th May from 8am to 1pm

There will be planned maintenance to the university password changing system (https://password.beds.ac.uk) on Wednesday 17th May from 8am to 1pm. 

You will not be able to change passwords during this period.

Most popular searches in DISCOVER in April

 This is what you were searching DISCOVER for most often last month:

 

Most popular search terms in DISCOVER last month

  These were the most popular searches in DISCOVER in March

LexisNexis downtime on Thursday 30th and Friday 31st March

We've been warned that due to upgrades to LexisNexis, we will not have access to their services between about 5 pm on Thursday 30th March until about 2 am on Friday 31st.

Cite them Right - problem fixed

Cite them Right have fixed the problems they've had over the last couple of days, so the site should now be back to normal.

Cite them Right navigation problems

We have had this message from the provider of Cite them Right:

We are aware of an issue with pages under two navigation menu links: ‘Choose Referencing Style’ and ‘Browse Categories’. We are working on a fix. Please use the search bar to find content you are looking for. All pages and articles with referencing guidance remain available. Apologies for the inconvenience.

 

Most popular searches in DISCOVER last month

 These were the most popular searches in DISCOVER in February: 

NewsBank Special Reports March

NewsBank’s Special Reports are news articles, images and other useful content grouped for convenience under specific topics and themes. They enable users to quickly locate information while helping them gain better insight into current global issues and events.

Following is a listing of ones that may be of particular interest at this time. 

March Topics
Women's History Month
World Health - National Nutrition Month
Film, TV and Music Awards
World Economics 
World Environment

Additional featured Reports covering current issues and events
Mental Health
Issues in the News
Natural Disasters
Education Around the World
World Politics and Government

Each Special Report features current and retrospective coverage with new articles added daily.  There are over 60 Reports to be sure the information you need is always available.

 

Special Reports are easily accessible from the left side bar on your online resource menu page, on search screens and the Other NewsBank Products link in full-text newspaper products.

 

This video shows you how to find Special Reports, what they are and how they can be used. 

DISCOVER - top search terms in January

 These were the top searches in DISCOVER last month:

NewsBank special reports February 2023

NewsBank’s Special Reports are news articles, images and other useful content grouped for convenience under specific topics and themes. They enable users to quickly locate information while helping them gain better insight into current global issues and events.

Following is a listing of ones that may be of particular interest at this time. 

February Topics
Black History Month
World Health - National Heart Month
Film, TV and Music Awards
World Economics 
World Environment

Additional featured Reports covering current issues and events
Mental Health
Issues in the News
Natural Disasters
Education Around the World
World Politics and Government

Each Special Report features current and retrospective coverage with new articles added daily.  There are over 60 Reports to be sure the information you need is always available.

 

Special Reports are easily accessible from the left side bar on your online resource menu page, on search screens and the Other NewsBank Products link in full-text newspaper products.

 

This video shows you how to find Special Reports, what they are and how they can be used.