Accessing full text resources

What is available for free?

Social Care Online is free to use and includes some full-text content (for example, many reports and policy documents). Full text content is mostly Crown Copyright, government material or publications to which organisations provide open access.

Where the full text of a publication is available, the record on Social Care Online indicates this with a ‘Free resource’ icon and links to a PDF or Word version of the document or journal article.

Register or log in to your Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) account to access links to documents or journal articles on Social Care Online.

Note: Not all of the content referenced on Social Care Online is freely available to read online or download because some is produced by commercial publishers. Most journal articles in peer-reviewed journals have to be paid for either on an individual article basis or by subscription.

How can I obtain copies of journal articles indexed on Social Care Online?

  • If you are a member of an academic institution your library will have purchased an ejournals collection which may include access to material some of the journal titles indexed on Social Care Online.
  • If you do not have access to an academic or organisational library journal articles may be purchased individually by credit card from the publisher’s website (to which the record on Social Care Online is linked).
  • Order via the British Library’s Document Supply service for which there is also a charge.

How to obtain publications not available for download?

If you are a member of a library you may be able to obtain the publication through inter-library loan services. You are likely to be charged for this service.

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