VOCED Database for Technical and Vocational Education and Training - Australia

Source: VOCED

VOCED is the UNESCO/NCVER research database for technical and vocational education and training, an international database of research abstracts, in English.

It is produced by the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER), based in Adelaide, South Australia.

The VOCED database covers the topics of vocational education and training research, policy, practice, training systems and published statistics. It has extensive coverage of Australian material and includes a wide range of key international information.

Each entry contains standard bibliographic information, an abstract, and key index terms. Entries are in English, but may refer to documents in other languages. Each entry also provides information about obtaining the full text of the document. For Australian users, this document delivery service is provided by the national Australian Vocational Education and Training Clearinghouse network.

The document delivery service is not necessarily available to overseas users. Where possible, alternative sources for the full documents are supplied, and many entries now contain links to full text on the web.

VOCED includes entries for:

• research reports
• periodical/journal articles
• electronic documents
• papers (published and unpublished)
• evaluation studies
• policy documents
• survey results
• proceedings (workshops/seminars/conferences)
• theses
• bibliographies
• books
• government publications
• published statistics

VOCED uses the following sources for the material indexed:

• key Australian and international vocational education and training journals
• key organisations worldwide which produce publications about vocational education and training (including government bodies, national and international agencies and networks, research centres, universities and commercial publishers)
• contributions from the Australian national clearinghouse network
• contributions from partner organisations
• direct submissions from users of the database

VOCED is produced with assistance and support from a network of clearinghouses, throughout Australia and New Zealand.

The National Clearinghouse which co-ordinates the network, is based at the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). It collects information forwarded by the local clearinghouses, and from a wide range of other sources, and incorporates it in the UNESCO/NCVER Vocational Education and Training Research Database (VOCED).

The aim of the clearinghouse network is to:

• give greater access to national, regional and international vocational education and training research and policy information and materials
• encourage new initiatives in this educational sector
• provide avenues and opportunities for promotion, publicity and dissemination of material and information
• prevent the duplication of research and other initiatives, thus reducing wastage of resources
• provide help-desk support and training in the use of the VOCED database
• promote the use of the VOCED database as a vehicle for dissemination of information about VET.

The role of the local clearinghouses is to:

• collect local or topical information
• prepare entries for VOCED
• provide access to the material collected and indexed
• promote the VOCED database

The national and local clearinghouses are the contacts for the document delivery service associated with the VOCED database. Clearinghouses and current staff are listed below.

VOCED is one of the products of the UNESCO regional centre of excellence in technical and vocational education and training, established jointly between NCVER and Adelaide Institute of TAFE (AIT/UNEVOC). The centre of excellence was formed in March 2001.

VOCED is supported by UNESCO's International Centre for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (UNESCO-UNEVOC) in Bonn, Germany, the hub of the international UNEVOC network, providing information exchange to UNESCO Member States.

VOCED receives funding from the Australian National Training Authority (ANTA).

VOCED is produced with assistance and support from a network of clearinghouses, throughout Australia and New Zealand.

VOCED is built and maintained using the CDS/ISIS software developed by UNESCO.

The VOCED database has been mounted on the Web using an in-house developed system of perl scripts which access the files output from the CDS/ISIS database.

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