Since the 1970s, The Open University’s Students in Secure Environments (SiSE) programme has spread to over 150 prisons, 50 secure hospital units and countless students studying with restrictions or licence conditions in the community. Currently, students in prison cannot access Library resources as they don’t have access to the internet. Some students in secure environments do however have access to the OU’s Virtual Campus (intranet site) and printed materials, depending on the facilities available at their prison or health facility.
How the Library provides research skills training to all students
In collaboration with OU academics, the Library has developed a collection of digital and information literacy learning activities for OU students, designed to help you develop skills in finding, evaluating and referencing information. These activities are featured within modules and are hosted on the Library’s Digital Skills for Study (DiSS) page and our Being digital site.
Acquiring these skills enables you to study effectively, become independent learners and be better prepared for the workplace. But these activities usually require students to have online access… so how could we provide essential skills training to students in secure environments, who do not have access to the internet?
We want every OU student to have the resources they need to succeed during their studies and beyond, so our teaching librarians worked to recreate a collection of these essential skill-building activities that could be accessed without use of the internet. This collection, which focused on developing learners’ critical evaluation, referencing and literature searching skills, is now accessible by students in secure environments from their own offline sites – allowing them to improve their academic performance and become independent researchers.
How you can get involved
Not having access to a computer and/or the internet also means that students in secure environments are unable to carry out independent online research required to complete their assignments. This led to the creation of the Library Study Volunteer scheme back in early 2019.
The scheme consists of a team of OU student volunteers that carry out research and find Library resources on behalf of OU students in secure environments. The student volunteers are all experienced students studying at the OU who receive training from the SiSE Team, the OU Student Association (OUSA) and the Library on how to respond to these research enquiries. Feedback from the volunteer students and students in prison show just how much the service is valued. One SiSE commented:
“Thank you for sending out this new service for OU study research. I am very grateful that this is a viable support to my learning. I wish you the very best of health wealth, joy and spirit and look forward to receiving the response to my requests.”
Without this assistance it would be virtually impossible for students in prison to be able to study at Level 2 and above. If you’d like to get involved with the Library Study Volunteers scheme, keep an eye on the OUSA volunteering page for application details.
To learn more about how the OU is supporting students in secure environments, visit the SiSE website.
The Library Services website is your gateway to a wide range of online information resources. You can use it to find out more about the Library, search our extensive online collection of Library resources (including eBooks, journals, databases and more), and explore our programme of live online training sessions that are available to all OU students and staff. Or indeed, come and speak with us at the Library Helpdesk: we look forward to it. And keep up to date with us by liking us on Facebook, following us on Bluesky, and subscribing to our YouTube channel.
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