Library Guides: A-Z Databases: Education Source: Library Guide

Content, Coverage & Description

Education Source This link opens in a new window
Education Source is claimed to be the world's largest full-text research database designed for education students, professionals and policymakers. It provides full text, indexing and abstracts for thousands of education journals, books and education-related conference papers.
Searchable via One Search.
Use your student/staff email address and password to access the resource.

How to Access

Go to Databases A-Z and select 'Education Source'.

You will be prompted to enter your Microsoft sign in.
You will need to sign in using your UWS e-mail address.

When to Use

To find good quality journal articles about all aspects of education from early childhood to higher education
To find full text eBooks about education
To find education conference papers

Using your smartphone?

Download the EBSCO mobile app for easier access.

EBSCO Tutorials (2023) The EBSCO mobile app - Tutorial. Available at: https://youtu.be/LFIOQRqodLo?si=_GcLZv7kQ1WU7DNr (Accessed: 15 December 2023).

How to Search

Advanced Search

Typing a sentence into a search engine or database will not search resources effectively.

Consider the key words and/ or phrases that describe what you want to search (e.g. outdoor education and early years). Enter these in the search boxes provided.

You can use various search techniques to add in extra terms, combine multiple topics, narrow results down and get more useful results. These include:

Phrase search - including the terms in quotation marks to ensure they appear together (e.g. "outdoor education").
Boolean search:
- AND (+) - narrows down the results. All connected terms must be included in the results (e.g. outdoor education AND early years).
- OR (|) - broadens out the results. Either connected term can be included in the results (e.g. "outdoor education" OR "outdoor learning").
- NOT (-) narrows down the results. The second term must be excluded from the results (e.g. outdoor education NOT adventure).

Truncation symbol * to find variations of word endings (e.g. assess* will find assess, assesses, assessment etc..

Use the available filters, e.g. to the left of your results list, to refine your search by date range, language or content type, among others.

Extending the search beyond full text items

Education Source is set to offer full text results by default. Abstracts or references for many more articles are available by deselecting the 'Also search within the full text of the articles' option.

Some of these articles may be accessible in full via the listed 'Check Primo OneSearch' links.

For others, a free copy may be available on the internet provided under an open access arrangement. Use Google Scholar or Open Access Button to check. Type in one author's surname and add the title of the article in quotation marks (to look for the words in the same order). If the article is freely available, you will see a PDF or HTML notation beside the citation.

Google Scholar
A widely available search engine that indexes academic and professional level journal articles, and reports.
Open Access Button
Search engine enabling free access to the full text of scholarly articles in compliance with copyright restrictions.

You may also be able to get the article by requesting an Interlibrary Loan (ILL).

Thesaurus searching

An alternative to keyword searching is to use the in-built Education Source Subject Headings - a menu option above the search boxes.

Browse to find relevant subject terms,
Click on the subject heading to see a subject breakdown,
Choose to 'Explore' all entries available or restrict your results to one or more of the listed subheadings. See accompanying Scope Notes for advice.
Select 'Search database'.

These results can then be combined with other search terms, and/ or further filtered, as above.

Video: A Video Guide to Creating a Search

Learn how to perform an advanced search in databases on the EBSCOhost Research Platform.

EBSCO Tutorials (2019) Creating an advanced search - tutorial. Available at: https://youtu.be/DjKNxqiuwpY (Accessed: 10 November 2020).

Top Tips

In the 'Select a field' dropdown, select Abstract to limit the search results to articles discussing your topic.
To save specific articles, or your searches, for viewing in later search sessions, sign up for a personal folder. See the Create a personal account with EBSCO video for details.
The 'UK and Ireland' geographic filter refers to where the journal is published so has limited relevance for individual articles.
When referencing an article, click the article's title then select the 'Permalink' option to generate an accessible URL to include in your reference list. Alternatively, click the 'Cite' option then view the appropriate entry, e.g. 'Harvard'. [The default URL is customised to a user session so generates error messages whenever used by another user.]

Help & Support

If you are experiencing difficulties accessing any resources, or would like to discuss your searches, referencing or related matters, please contact library staff:

Email library@uws.ac.uk or log a call on the Self Service Portal.

Self Service Portal
All students and staff members have access to an online Self Service Portal to search through the answers to FAQs, log calls or place service requests and review the progress of any submitted requests.

A-Z Databases: Education Source: Library Guide